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.
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The next step was to decide what I wanted to make the frame out of. This was dictated mainly by what I could get, and what tools I had easy access to. I didn't want to make a fool of myself begging commercial frame builders or bicycle shops for catalogues of lugs or tube sets, so I searched the net until I found someone with a decent selection on-line. That place was Ceeway, a company in the UK that sells Columbus tubing and a great variety of lugs via mail order. They have a really neat website where all their products are pictured, making selection easy.
I chose Columbus Thron CroMo steel tubing for my frame, and chose to join the tubes using lugs. This was a good material to use for a first frame for the following reasons:
- It's not very expensive. My tube set cost about 30 UK pounds.
- It's double butted, so the resulting frame will be reasonably light.
- The tube ends are reasonably thick (0.8mm) compared to the more expensive tube sets, so I figured it would be forgiving of a learner brazer.
- The tubes are available in the diameters and shapes that I wanted.
I chose to use oversized tubes, with a 28.6mm seat tube and top tube, and a 31.7mm down tube and head tube. Ceeway had really beefy chain stays, that were 30mm x 16mm oval at one end, and tapered down to 12.5mm diameter. I figured these would work well on a track bike, as I wanted the bike to be as stiff as possible. I also used fairly fat seat stays, 16mm diameter at the top, and tapering to 12.5mm at the bottom.
Next step was to choose lugs. I looked at all the lugs available from Ceeway, and ruled out those that wouldn't physically fit my mix of tubes. That narrowed the choice to just a few sets, which was refreshing, as too many choices just makes it harder. I went for fairly minimalist lugs, the Saba '51' series. I went for a Long-Shen LB-106 bottom bracket, as it had no cable guides and was compatible with my mix of tubes. For the fork-ends, I chose the Long-Shen LR-15 cast track ends, as I liked the way they plugged into the seat stays and chain stays, rather than using slotted stays.
   
The tubes and lugs arrived about a fortnight later, at the cost of all of 70 UK pounds, including shipping half way around the world.
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