New Member - Anyone willing to give Brazing Lessons in Southern California?

[cmsanford88]

Hi All,

Wanted to start with an introduction. My names Chris Sanford, I live in LA and have been daydreaming about building frames as a hobby for quite some time. Have recently moved to a house with an actual workspace and have decided to start down the road to building my first frame.

This forum has been a huge help in researching specific steps I should be taking. Have picked up some basic handtools and straight guage tubing and started practicing stuff like miters and notches for dropouts. Have enjoyed getting a feel for that stuff and want to start getting into some brazing.

That's where my question starts. I work in the film industry and tend to have pretty long days during the week, which rules out the trade school options I've found for brazing classes. There's also a community metalworking shop locally. I've signed up for a framebuilding class there in June, but would love to get going sooner.

With that, are there any forum members locally, or within a few hour drive, who'd be willing to show me the ropes? I'm imagining some weekend sessions, would just like to learn under some knowledgeable supervisions and have someone to check the quality of practice work I'll end up doing. I'd obviously be willing to pay for your time, and am not expecting that to be particularly cheap. I'll also promise to be humble, hard-working, and bring donuts.

Thanks for any insight you guys might have, and the awesome resources you've already given on this forum.

Best
Chris

[cmsanford88]

Guess I should also mention, I'm hoping to gain the skills to put together a simple lugged cromo frame. Would love to learn some fillet brazing, and would love to do a fork, but I'm guessing those are skills better saved for down the line.

Thanks again.

Chris Sanford

[false_aesthetic]

You're taking the course at MMW?
If so, I'd take the O/A sculpture class or the taster course just to familiarize yourself with MMW, their tools + the facility.
Let the instructor(s) guide you.


FWIW, I did a TIG course there (after learning from a friend) and it was 100% worth the time and $$

[cmsanford88]

Thanks for the advice Tom, and yea I've taking the class at Molten. Glad to hear it's worthwhile, they seem like nice folks over there.

After I signed up for the class I pinged them about doing some private lessons instead, seems like they might be a bit busy for that to be reasonable tho. The O/A class could be a good in-between to get me going.

Chris Sanford

[wsteve464]

I took the fall class at Molten Metal. Martin the instructor is a very nice guy and will teach you the basics of a lugged frame, they don't teach fillet brazing though. Based on my experience you will need to be able to do some of the work at home. If you can't find brazing lessons and you are planning on building additional frames after the class spend your time between now and then getting your shop setup. Build a frame and fork jig, there are plenty of plans, images on line. McMaster Carr carries the T slotted framing, not the cheapest but very convenient. Get your brazing set up going and buy the scrap selection of 4130 tubing from Aircraft Spruce and practice brazing.

If you want to meet up to discuss I live close to Sylmar.

Steve Wilkinson

[cmsanford88]

Thanks Steve! I ordered all the bits for a Ideas2Cycle Jig, just got the fixtures from them and ordered the aluminum extrusions and hardware here. Should be a few weeks before everything arrives but that'll be fun to set up. Thinking I might try the PCC or Rosebowl flea markets for some brazing equipment? Feel like I always see a few vendors with huge layouts of tools, figure I might luck out and find a nice handle or something.

Chris Sanford

[BigPoser]

Thanks Steve! I ordered all the bits for a Ideas2Cycle Jig, just got the fixtures from them and ordered the aluminum extrusions and hardware here. Should be a few weeks before everything arrives but that'll be fun to set up. Thinking I might try the PCC or Rosebowl flea markets for some brazing equipment? Feel like I always see a few vendors with huge layouts of tools, figure I might luck out and find a nice handle or something.

I was just checking out this jig that you posted about. What all comes in the kit from Ideas2Cycle? Is it a complete set up with a list of everything else needed? Looking at jigs as well and the cost of this is intriguing for sure. Just wondering if I'd want something a bit more commercial. Thanks.

[cmsanford88]

The kit I bought just comes with the machined fittings, so headtube, bottom bracket and seat tube holders. With shipping was something like 130 USD. With that purchase they send over a pretty detailed manual, which includes exactly what standard parts you need to order (down to the part numbers, made it very easy to search everything). Just got all that stuff from Minitec online for 250 shipped from NY to CA. Think the only remaining parts are some threaded rod, which I'll just pick up at a hardware store locally.

Setup on the jig looks relatively straightforward, they give you an excel spreadsheet where you plugin stuff like frame angles and chainstay length and it spits out the dimensions of where you different control points go on the jig. I'll report back once I have it assembled, sure it's not the nicest tool in the world but for the price it seemed like a good starter setup.

Chris Sanford

[cmsanford88]

Hey guys! Thought I'd follow up on the jig I got. Was easy to put together, set up is a little bit of a pain but not unmanageable. I will say that the spreadsheet they provide is fine but doesn't give head tube position, I guess the idea is that it would be determined by the properly mitered top and down tubes. I ended up using my rattlecad drawings to figure it out, not sure if everyone would love that process tho.

I also built a simple fork jig with similar components, happy with how it turned out.

Lastly, about 3 home made fork benders later I think I'm ready to just buy one, haha. Got one to work on 1mil fork blades, then promptly kinked .9s.



Chris Sanford

[cmsanford88]

Chris Sanford


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