All these bloody framebuilders eh

Thanks for explaining ,amazing method! And amazing patience!

I was thinking about this problem. You could 3D print a "lug", which goes around the tube and lets you mark the cutting line directly on the tube with a sharpie. These "lugs" could have feet, so that one on each end of the tube puts the mitres perfectly in phase.

If you would like to try this I'm happy to design and print some for you, I'm curious if it works.

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Probably a bit wasteful for single use. Every frame will have different angles and tube diameters. You can print off paper templates to wrap around the tubes that do this job fine albeit without the clocking

Ah nice yeah its a good idea, ive seen similar things that people have done to mitre tubes for roll cages and things. I think the challenge with a frame is that the angles vary so much for each frame that you would need to print a new pair each time for each tube, as @PhilDAS said you can get mitre templates out of bikecad. However itd be good if you had a batch of a few tubes with all the same fit.

Putting my name on the non-existing list :) love the sober but fun style of your builds.

yea I guess if you start mass producing identical frames you probably wouldnt mitre tubes by hand anymore...

plastic waste wise, I agree it's not ideal. But also not terrible, these parts would not need to be very dense. And money waste wise it's not bad I think. each of these would cost below a pound.

Which bit of Provence are you in, and how easy or otherwise was it to make this dream happen..?!

Were in a small village about 100km north of Nice. It's been a significant effort to get here that's for sure. Moving is hard obviously, logistics and all that, especially with the tools. I didn't realise but having my tools all in one place was really important to me and having them all spread across Europe stressed me out.

The moving plan was cooking for quite a while until we pulled the trigger and I didn't really think about any of it too much. But yeah it's a real change, it's been a great change but it takes a fair bit of adjustment.

And of course thanks to Brexit the visa thing is a pain in the arse. A real pain, like mega throbbing bureaucratic pain. However pretty much fine now. But just annoying, seems unfair especially since I was like 15 when the Brexit vote happened so I didn't even get to vote.

Anyway it was difficult in a variety of ways but totally worth it, i feel much better than I ever did in London. It's crazy how leaving London can change your outlook on life.

Thanks! I'll keep it in mind, you never know. It would be fun to do!

Appreciated :)

That massive down tube fit around the BB! Super clean work, must feel great.

Congrats on making it happen - sure it is worth it!

Thanks! Yeah it's very satisfying

Thanks :)

I have made some progress on the track frame, quite happy with it, the big downtube is cool.

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Wells look great. Is it just heatsinks? No back purge?

Thanks! Yeah I use some fairly large heatsinks from that guy on eBay, chris something, they're great. But these photos the welds are slightly brushed as well tbh so the haz is not totally indicative. I usually brush some of the oxide off after the weld to make sure everything went down nicely.

I didn't backpurge this one, but sometimes I do.

Fabulously interesting thread.

Thanks for taking the time to post up.

Read right through - wet bank holiday weekend reading.

The MTB looks great, really 'slack'. Going by your pictures the trails and back lanes appear very tempting.

The colour of the Fixed Gear Winter Bike is just sublime.

Living in Provence and making bike frames.......hmmmm.........jealous.....moi!

Thanks! The trails around here are great although im going to have to get better at riding on loose terrain, so much loose gravel and rocks around.

The fixed gear winter bike is ral4010 is you ever want to replicate the colour :)

got some more shots of the mtb

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Going to try and sort out paint for it asap, and will also build a more aggressive stem. I have half a stem kicking around that i started and never finished a few years ago, with roughly -17 angle, so i will continue with that.

Looks great! Any recommended suggestions for sprayers nearish London?