I built my first frame in January/February of 2013. It was completed just before I went to the North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS), and gave me a real appreciation for the amazing craftsmanship on display at NAHBS. Things I did right: I studied the Paterek Manual. This book provided a great overview of building a frame. I bought bikecad. This greatly simplified designing the frame, and made mitering tubes a breeze. I built this frame off of a granite surface plate, which really works pretty well for the occasional frame. I just realized the picture below if of an aborted mountain bike frame, but the technique is the same. I…

This sweet little ride is my fourth frame from scratch, and my second fillet brazed frame. As would be expected, this frame turned out much better than my first mountain bike frame. This is my wife Karen's mountain bike and replaced her Cannondale Raven 800SL from 2001. Quite a change! I started out brazing with some flux I had from Henry James, but it was old, and dried out, and not working well. I ordered some new flux from Henry James and the brazing went much better. When the frame was nearly completed, I ran out of the brazing rod I had previously ordered from Henry James and finished up with…

I built my first frame in January/February of 2013. It was completed just before I went to the North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS), and gave me a real appreciation for the amazing craftsmanship on display at NAHBS. Things I did right: I studied the Paterek Manual. This book provided a great overview of building a frame. I bought bikecad. This greatly simplified designing the frame, and made mitering tubes a breeze. I built this frame off of a granite surface plate, which really works pretty well for the occasional frame. I just realized the picture below if of an aborted mountain bike frame, but the technique is the same. I…

This sweet little ride is my fourth frame from scratch, and my second fillet brazed frame. As would be expected, this frame turned out much better than my first mountain bike frame. This is my wife Karen's mountain bike and replaced her Cannondale Raven 800SL from 2001. Quite a change! I started out brazing with some flux I had from Henry James, but it was old, and dried out, and not working well. I ordered some new flux from Henry James and the brazing went much better. When the frame was nearly completed, I ran out of the brazing rod I had previously ordered from Henry James and finished up with…