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I'll be interested to follow your progress...
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Upon further reflection I was thinking my designs could be a little be too, on the racey side. After playing around with the frame a bit, i ended up with something slightly more upright. But still along the same lines..
Like i said thou any feed back would be greatly appreciated
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Hi,
I've did the Downland course about 4 years ago. They are a really nice group of people, and the workshop is well appointed.
I have subsequently done other frame-building courses, and regularly ride around on a bike I built myself, which is a great feeling.
There are really four main aspects to frame-building; design, cutting tubes to close tolerances, brazing the tubes together and alignment.
For your first build, I would suggest you stick to a very simple, lugged design. You also want to use a tubeset that is fairly tolerant, like say Columbus Spirit.
Really, you've got 5 days or so, so you want to learn as much as you can about cutting tubes to size (the better you can do that, the better the results), and brazing tubes together - which means learning about heat control and brass-flow.
If you can cut the tubes, and braze them - you will know the basics of frame building. Learning about design and alignment can come later. If it's your first time, I would forget about fillet brazing or anything over complicated.
Most of all, enjoy the course. I loved it.
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Good write-up from Danstuff here: https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/281670/
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A few thoughts.
Zona is a good tube set to start with, the metallurgy is quite forgiving of heat. Spirit is thin and expensive, probably not ideal for a first frame.
If you're building a lugged frame you won't be able to use a tapered headset, and your angles & tubing choices will be quite constrained. Basically, lugs are restrictive. That also applies to the ISP.
What your design implies is either a fillet brazed or a TIG welded construction. I see that Downland now offer fillet brazed frames.
Fillet brazing and finishing is a bit more complex than lugged work, especially when it comes to creating a smooth flowing finish without damaging the tubing. It's possible, but definitely harder, and you'd be pushing it to have a fully finished fillet brazed frame as a novice in 6 days.
Don't want to sound like a downer, as it should be an enjoyable process - just make sure you keep things simple on your first frame so you can get the basics as good as possible.
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Thanks for that! I also spoke to my mate who thinks I was getting a bit a head of myself with my designs and ideas haha.. But I'm hearing nothing but positive stuff about frame building - and I can see myself really catching the bug for this as many others have seemed to! So yeah I think I need to enjoy the course and learn what I can. Thanks
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Haha not a downer at all, yeah I think I was getting a bit a head of myself with excitement. Zona seems like a good choice and glad someone's backed that up for me now. I feel like it would be more useful as well to struggle with fillet brazing and learn it, rather than sticking to lug work out of ease and learning it later on? (I could be wrong thou). Maybe a simple frame design, fillet brazed would make more sense for the course?
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Thanks for all the feedback guys really appreciate it! I'm going to cycle over to Downland next week, and have a chat with the guys down there.
With the helpful feedback and numerous chats with others I think a simpler frame build for my first would be better, and see how I get on before under taking a more complex frame design.
Maybe a nice steel track frame
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Hi Buzz Killington here....
The zona tubes will only have about 250mm of butt (don't have dats sheets here but it's around that) at the longest end. You will need to have the whole of the area joining the top tube in a but, as well as the whole exposed isp being butted. As you've drawn it, that's not going to work with the zona, and there aren't any tubes with that profile. Most people I've seen using steel isps either have much less slope on the TT or they use plain gauge (read heavy) seat tubes.
Also, have you thought about how to attach your saddle? Again, otp seat mast toppers are designed for Carbon and alloy frames on the whole, and dont come in useful steel sizes like 28.6.
Not trying to piss on your cornflakes, but itsprobably best to resolve these issues now rather than wasting precious time at the course.
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No don't worry! Your completely right and I've been way to ambitious for my first frame build.
I'm going to build a steel track frame, I'll still use it a lot. But it will be simple enough for my first frame build. Learning how to build a frame will be more important for now and I'll leave ISPs and weird angled tubes for later in life haha.
I'm going to go down to Downland next week and chat to the guys running the course. I'm sure they'll confirm that keeping it simple will be best.
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Started the course today!! Day 1 of 5 and I feel like I learnt loads already. Keeping it simple was a good idea, also going into it knowing my measurements really helped. There's two other chaps doing quite complicated builds. Byron the guy running the course had to spend a lot of time with them going over fit and why certain things wouldn't work. Which is fine, but choosing a simple design meant that I already had the front triangle (apart from tt) fitted to the jig after day one. So far the course has been great, really nice setting in rural Kent and the people running it at downland are extremely relaxed and nice people. Super excited to see this progress and can't wait to finish this project and get it on the road.
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Yesterday I got the front traingle mitreing done (my arms feel twice as big hahah). Cut the tubes done to size, brazed the bottle cage bosses in to the DT and ST. Cut the head tube down to size, and drilled the holes to allow gas to leave while brazing. Also got some tacking and fillet brazing practice in at the end of the day
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Awesome so far! :) Subbed.
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About
My first frame build.
Posted by
@JamesKJ
As per the title - I will be embarking on my first frame build! which i'm extremely excited about. I'll be using this for my own documentation really, and for anyone who may be interested.
I've always had an itch to do it ever since i first started building my own bikes a few years ago. With all the hype going around bespoke bikes at the moment as well, that was further inspired me to just do it. I'm doing the course at Downland cycles in Canterbury - i'll be stopping by next month to check the place out and learn more about the course, before doing it in June.
I've been struggling to decide what to build. I started off with a track bike, then a cx bike, all road bike etc etc. but for all intents and purposes a road bike with comfortable clearance for 28c tyres will do just fine. my current bike (pictured) is a good balance of everything. comfortable yet racey, stiff and compliant. the really good all rounder. I'm pretty much looking to achieve this again with my build. Just with slightly more clearance for 28c on a nice wide rim. The plan for the frame is to try using it abroad and for general use, something i can bully a bit - and leave the Litespeed for a Sunday best.
Geometry and size wise i'm mixing it up between the Litespeed and a Giant TCR advanced SL (which i got to try out when one floated through the shop and really liked it!) Pictured is what i came up with using BikeCAD (which is great as i'm sure many of you guys are aware.) paint job is just what i made playing around with bikecad, I'll be designing something else at a later date. decided to go with an ISP, low frame with a raised handlbar, 1 1/8 - 1.5 tapered headset to stiffen up the front end and columbus zona tubing. Heard loads of great things about that tube set.
all feedback will be greatly appreciated and my next up date will be my trip down to downland cycles.
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