Soldering the main triangle.

Beginning steps - deciding what you want to build.

Materials - what to use and where to get it.

Tools - a bare bones set of tools.

Modifying the fork-ends with stainless faces.

Modifying the bottom bracket shell to work with my mix of angles.

Mitering the tubes.

Soldering the main triangle.

Soldering the rear triangle.

Cleaning up the lugs. Complete with lots of pictures of the naked unpainted frame.

Making transfers.

Painting.

Addendum.

Now for the fun bit. I started by joining the head tube to the down tube. I fluxed the joint, and fit the down tube in the lug socket, and put the lug on the head tube. I held the two tubes so the joint was tight, and clamped my aluminium bar to both head tube and down tube. After checking the angle between them, I soldered them together.

This was a little easier than with the fork end, as the lug is considerably less mass, and thus heats up a lot easier. Again, I heated the whole area for a while, until it looked to be nearing the right temperature. Then I brought the torch a little closer, and flowed silver into the top of the joint between the down tube and lug. I flowed this right the way around this joint, and then moved on to the head tube - lug joint. This was a little more difficult, as it was hard to heat the tube under the lug without overheating the lug.

Once I was satisfied with this joint, I checked it against my drawing, and found the angle was spot on. I next joined the down tube to the bottom bracket. After fluxing the bottom bracket socket and the end of the tube, I inserted the tube the right depth into the bottom bracket socket. This time, I clamped the aluminium bar to the side of the bottom bracket shell, using a large bolt right the way through the shell. This was possible because my shell was pre-faced. I simply clamped it so that it went up alongside the head tube, then clamped it to the head tube with 18.1mm of spacers in between.

This ensured that the down tube was in the correct plane with the face of the bottom bracket, and also that the head tube was in the same plane. I again heated the joint up, this time putting most of my heat into the bottom bracket, to ensure it didn't act as a heat sink. It was positioned so that the bottom of the bottom bracket was uppermost. I simply fed silver into the slot cut in the base of the socket, and let it flow from there, then along the join at the top part of the tube. Once it was done, I could see that the silver had flowed all the way to the end of the tube, with a fillet visible from inside the bottom bracket shell.

The picture above shows the bottom bracket after a little clean up. The down tube has been soldered, but the chain stays and seat tube are simply sitting in their sockets. Note that the seat stay socket still needs a little work. There's a gap visible towards the back.

Next job was to fit the seat tube to the bottom bracket. I spent some time making sure the seat tube socket was right before progressing. Now that some of the frame was soldered, I was able to assemble the seat tube and top tube, and check the frame against the drawing, without all the tubes trying to fall apart.

I'd also cut the chain stays to length at this point, and had mitered them as well. This was accomplished by simply inserting them at the right angle into their sockets, and marking them where they protruded into the bottom bracket. Note at this point that I hadn't cut the top of the seat tube, or the head tube. I left them full length until after I was done soldering.

Once I was satisfied with the seat tube socket, I fluxed it and the end of the seat tube, and inserted the seat tube. I put the top tube in place with its lugs holding it, simply to ensure that the seat tube was at the right angle. Now I used my square aluminium tube to get the seat tube - bottom bracket face in plane, this time with 19.7mm of spacers. Once I was satisfied that it was all in the correct plane, and inserted to the right depth, I soldered the joint. As with the down tube, I added most of the filler through the slot in the back of the lug, and then ran some around the edges.

I then fluxed both joins on the top tube, and soldered them. The front of the top tube was accomplished much like the top tube - down tube join. On the top tube - seat tube join, I started by running filler in around the top of the lug on the top tube and flowing it around the join, then went around the top of the seat tube. Finally, I ran filler around the bottom of the lug. This lug had a very large contact area with the seat tube. I was very careful heating the seat tube, as the top of the tube is not butted, and is only 0.6mm thick. One imagines it would be very easy to blow a hole through it. Again, a large tip and low gas velocity minimises this risk, as well as ensuring the torch is always moving.

The pictures below show the joins after some clean up has been done, including trimming off the excess seat tube.