Winter road bike, from the tubes up

Wow congrats Mike, what an amazing motivation to carry on with all of this.
Really interesting to see how you test the bridge position with a caliper first before going belt and braces, never really thought about that before.

No doubt if you were building lots of the same model you'd just jig that kind of operation and punch out a load of bridges at the right size, but obviously this is a bit more hands-on!

Tacking is really useful throughout the build process, especially with the fillet brazes. You can stitch the front triangle and chain stays together with minimal heating, check them all for alignment and redo anything that's out without too much bother.

The same approach could be taken with lugs, I suspect. Just put a tiny dab on the tip of the lug, check, then pull it in/flat when you fix the joint fully. Heating while pulling should let you dismantle it if you need to.