Search results for:

Go round and make friends with the picture framers. They supply the galleries etc. Take a sample.
Then they can do all the fitting, glass and other faff. You just do the metal
I did some for a bit, but it can be fairly repetitive.
Nice mitres and filed perfectly flat/square. Frames and aluminium painting panels too.

If you don't mind cutting glass and making subframes, loads of artists prefer aluminium frames. But I wouldn't want to be handling paper/canvas artworks to be honest, it raises insurance costs too. Haha.

I only hear good things about them, and great customer service. My friend just bought one and I'd consider one too if my expensive one ever broke.
I would also definitely consider going for the AC/DC version for aluminium, you won't regret it and aluminium isn't harder to weld. Otherwise you'll find people asking you to do it in a few months time and won't have the kit.
Aluminium picture frames are always in demand and are fairly simple to churn out 👍
If you can go for 180amps or more it'll be worth it, especially for aluminium where it needs the extra punch because it conducts alot away to begin with.

Otherwise 160 covers most bits and bobs in steel.
You won't look back, loads of work out there for TIG welders it seems 👊

I've gas welded brass before, it was with a fluxer and torch, proper welding with a bead and pooling parent material etc. I do alot of brass tig'ing usually. Thought I'd try it with a torch and it worked really nicely with the gas fluxer going. Ended up with a nice bead around a sphere.
Would like to try gas welding aluminium though. Not as noisy as tig'ing it!

Ps. Just to add, If I can do it, anybody can. Go for it, there's lots of work out there for somebody that can TIG weld properly. It's just tricky to build up the experience without having a patient boss or your own kit.

Really the best thing is to grab somebody for 1h tuition at a time, then go away and practice for a couple of days.
I don't think an intense course is the best way because there is alot to take in and you'll forget when you have the torch in hand.
Having somebody look over your shoulder at stages is really helpful - keeping the angle of the torch right etc.

YouTube is handy.
Avoid social media pics of TIG welds, it just makes you feels shit when you probably aren't 😊

Thanks :) Very rusty to be honest!
This is the next bike I'm working on. I used similar geometry but 3cm shorter, to try a longer stem.
It was meant to be an upgrade to my London crappy bike that lasted 8 years but was horrible to ride (cheap aluminium frame).
I didn't really plan the rolled tube, and it's very crude to be honest - I just used a seatstay, so it was only just long enough. I thought about adding some bosses for a rack-kind-of-shelf thing on the back - Like a Moulton. Just need to find the time to make a fork.... hopefully this week.

Cheers!
I sprayed my first car when I was 16 or so at my Dads workshop, and tried making money spraying bikes when I left college about 10 years ago.... I sprayed a few bikes for people on here actually. The penguin Classic one for Dammit and a few brightly coloured Spinergy wheels were popular. Painting isn't an easy way to make money if you are aiming for perfection, so I found..... you can loose 5 hours quite easily in small details.....not that perfection exists anyway! I ended up going down the metalwork route instead. Very satisfying to spray a clearcoat though, nothing really beats it!
Dan at Cole Coatings Workshop kindly cut me some stencils as I made him some shelves. He's the man.

I managed to spray and build this up a couple of weeks ago now, but haven't managed to put many miles on it as I've jumped straight onto frame 3 and back to work for customers!
I put the bloody rack mounts too low and the brake caliper is now a bit close - rookie error that isn't it.
Anyway, onto the next! I'm currently making something 3cm shorter so I can run a longer stem.
I've also become a bit obsessed with some of these really old bikes on here: https://onlinebicyclemuseum.co.uk/
We'll see.

The next step is a fork, some stems and trying some internal routing. I fancy trying some more descreet seat post clamps too...

Cheers. Yeah, just for a change really and I spent a fortune on a gas fluxer so felt I should use it more! Like alot of people I guess, seeing Curtis frames as a teenager has stuck in my mind.
I still like TIG, I just need to practice on such thin tubes. I can knock out some inoffensive TIG welds on thin tube, but getting that last 10-20% of quality is really hard and I need to come back to that at some point :)
Got lots to learn with brazing too. So much to practice!

Lovely looking bikes.
Some of these coatings are excellent for protecting bare metals: https://www.everbritecoatingsuk.com/all-applications

This is a chrome finish I did about 11 years ago. Wet spraing a chrome finish seemed quite a new thing at the time, in the UK anyway. It was a bit wierd process!
You do all the normal primers then a 2K gloss black - left to fully cure. Then a silver nitrate solution thinly sprayed, which is gently wiped to lay all the particles down (yeah, sounds strange), then a water based sealant (looked like PVA to me!), then normal 2K clear over the top.
Never again.
There are lots of other ways to get a semi-reflective finish now, including that one where they seem to contantly spray the part with distilled water which looks highly reflective after.

Pictures from the customer once he built up the bike.

Keep a search notification on for 'jig borer' - Like a mill really but geared more towards plunging instead of x/y - I think that's right anyway. They usually have a small table which is enough for positioning a tube mitre. They also tend to be rigid things for repetitive acurate work.
Some are massive, but most are small.
Also, most people are not searching for jig borers so you may get one under the radar with less bidding competition (apart from me) :)

Ah yeah, hi Tim!
Blast from the past.
I finally sold the frame last year, shame, as I think it would have fitted you from memory.
All well thanks. Hope you are too!

YEAH! Sam. Who's this? :)
Must have been 2005/6
Bankers from RBS coming in and wanting to buy a fixed gear bike on a lunch break. What happened to Shop 14 Bike Co in the end? The customers went there if we sold out of charge plugs. ha. So long ago now.

This is my Rondinella TT frame I used to own - before and after I put modern components on it.
It was completely original (although I changed the tubular SATURNE rims for commuting), including bar tape and everything - Campag pista chainset with Super record rear derailleur. It was sacrilege to change it looking back. I put carbon Centaur on there but should have kept it as it was.
I commuted every day for 2 years on this.

This is the finished frame sat back in the jig.
You can spot a couple of low point in the brazing. I need to lay more brass on there. I couldn't be bothered to go back and build this up and I'll loose quite a bit in the primer. I'v got to remember this isn't the one-and-only... I need to make as many frames as possible to get better, so this could only be ridden for 3 months and then join the other one on the wall. No point going crazy with finishing - I only spent 2.5h sanding all the fillets. I didn't do much on the concave fillets ontop of the BB, that takes alot of work.
The fillet sanding is something I have done alot before on other projects and is something I enjoy. I think my knuckles may think differently though.

That's where I got to. Just waiting to get back to paint and for the bike shop to do the BB tapping/facing when they open. Tempted to buy the tooling but I'm not sure if the Icetoolz or similar BB kits are any good? Can't spend £500 on a Park Tool one - I know it's a good bit of kit, but it seems to have too much bike-tax added for me.

To the brazing.
I'm coming from a TIG background and carry over some bad habits that were acknowledged on the excellent BA course. I tend to dab the filler rod in but find this leads to quite a low bead with a small 'throat' when brazing - as you'll probably see around the BB below. I'm still working out how to build this higher - I'm still running a bit hot at the moment (I think) as I'm keen to see it fully wet into the root, but I could be going a little too far with the heat. Hopefully as confidence comes I'll be able to drop in more brass while still being confident it's flowed properly.
Also the brazing samples I did on the Bicycle Academy course are much better than the ones I did on this frame. Having somebody standing over and giving pointers really helps. I now just need to put the time in.

There is so much involved with making an accurate frame. I'm working with metal every day and strive for the best quality, but making a frame is a real test - The level of accuracy required and the amount of things going on keeps the brain working. I'm sure this becomes easier after 10 frames and potentially repetitive when doing a frame per week, hopefully I get to find out.
Hat's off to frame builders out there.

This is the Gas Fluxer set-up I have.
I did the brazing masterclass at the Bicycle acedemy a couple of years ago now and haven't used it much since - especially on steel. It works REALLY well with thin brass actually. I ususally TIG brass, but tried using the gas fluxer with Sif 101 rod and it was a dream. Perfect colour match with the sheet. Not sure if it was gas welding or brazing to be honest - it was melting the parent material, so assume it was gas welding... The little Harris torch must be what most people are using I guess.
I've also got this relatively high temp brass solder. I'm not sure if this is ideal for things like braze-ons as it could be running too hot and may compromise the tubes.... I used this to solder on the brake bridge, but the fit was so tight (milled) I think it also has some mechanical strength ontop of the solder strength.
Also a picture of the heat sinks. The one on the left (the pro looking one) was bought from FiveLand Bikes. They are doing some amazing work so snapped at one of these when I saw they did a batch. So many framebuilders I look up to, they are right up there for me and seem bloody lovely. I made a pretty crude seatpost heatsink from brass I had around. I'ts not very good but seems to have done the job. I'll need to improve this, especially if I want to add back-purging for TIG later on.

Cheers.
Next I brazed on the seat clamp and roughly finished it and added the slit on the mill.
I cleaned up all the tubes on the inside and made sure there was no dirt or residue clinging onto any burrs. I clamped everything back in the jig for a final check.
G-Clamps aren't ideal to hold the tubes as they slightly distort the thin section, but it's fractional and it's ok while I'm still getting my head around all this.

Thanks! Thinking of going with pink/orange and black in this one!

Apocalypse scavenge isn't a bad idea, but I went for a small business loan when I started :) The kit isn't cheap but pays for itself when up and running.

Cheers @Hulsroy - Likewise, I always look forward to your updates!
Cheers @snottyotter - get yourself a good value R-tech TIG welder and give it a go, you won't look back!

I thought I'd share a few pictures as this one gets finished. I started before the lockdown and may not be able to finish for a while. It's just going to be a rack-and-mudgaurds summer cruiser hopefully - Zona tubing and I got a new full tiagra groupset for cheap.

I'm sure the welding table fixture takes 10 times longer to set up than an expensive frame jig, but I reckon it's far more versatile. It is seriously accurate and made from tool steel. The hole spacing means that the tube clamping in the V-blocks keeps everything central. I'm not fully happy with the rear axle fixture - I'd like it to slide forwards and backwards while keeping straight, so it may need a base plate machining at some point. It's very square and true though.
The whole fixture is adjustable around the BB shell which is only adjustable up and down.

I started 12 years ago by spraying bike frames but now only spray a couple of bits for myself.

Would be keen to hear any suggestions and ideas for the fixture.... I need to sort a brake bridge jig.... and I should sort out a set-up for notching the seatstays on the mill - that would save a couple of hours!

Thanks!
Sam

Excuse the crap pictures.
I recently started frame number 1 - I'm calling the first one frame number 0. Ha.
Some pictures below.
The main frame is actually not too tricky. The easiest bit is the bottom bracket mitres because they are simple perpendicular and central. I did them on the mill with a fine-tooth hole saw.
The tricky bits are the seat stays and the down tube which I had to mitre by hand.

I've been fabricating for artists and designers for over 10 years but always wanted to build my own frames. Fortunately I have all the kit and some of the skills needed - I think.
I'm coming at this from a slightly different direction as I have a pretty good welding table and fixture set up, which I'm determined to use.
I made my first one about 1 year ago. Pictures below. It was about as simple as it could get - TIG welded 653 - with downtube shifter. I worked it out as I went along, tweaking geometry and measurements from my other bikes. I rode it a bit for about 6 months and it was loads of fun.....