• Braker: I spent about 2 months reading everything I could about frame building and brazing on the internet. I bought some practice lugs and tubing from Ceeway (50p per lug and about £3 for 60cm of tube). It didn't prepare me for the fancy lugs much, but I learnt a bit about temperature and how the silver behaved. I over did it with the silver, for fear of under doing it, and had to spend some time with a mini-drill and a baby grinding wheel to get the lug lines nice again in some places. I did all the brazing with just propane using a Bullfinch Autobraze torch because I didn't want a big oxy-acetylene set up in the house and the hassle of renting gas etc.

    Fruit: Frameset was about £120 for Columbus Spirit (no forks) about £45 for the lugs and £25 for bb shell, £10 for trackends and £6 fro the top-eyes. Silver brazing rods and flux anoth £50ish - add a couple hacksaw blades and a fresh half round file so about £275 which is pretty good for a custom frame from good quality frameset. I cheated and bought some £50 CrMo forks from SJS, took of the mud-guard eyes and filled the rack fitting holes.

    Andy: I'm pretty happy with the build, the seat stays are slightly off where they meet the seat tube due to a slightly out of line trackend - but it still holds the back wheel dead straight and you can only see it if you are looking for it. The paint job is just from a rattle-can, so I might treat myself to a professional job at some point. Only had a chance of a very short ride, it was great.

    Thanks for all the comments,
    Ian.

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