What I've Noticed -

[e-RICHIE]

It would be a utopian solution, but...

This niche of fabrication is so small.

Those with the experience are active builders who share out of a love for the industry.

Those who share want to see high standards achieved but honestly do not have time to create such a certification process, as we have to build to pay the bills.

In the end, the best I hope for is that those who truly desire this path as a career heed our advice and put forth a best individual effort to ensure competency and quality before providing a vehicle to others.

r

The niche is small for two reasons. From the late 1980s and forward, industry has supplanted what was once the province of those at the top of the food chain. That is, while there was a time that production bicycles could only, at best, copy what framebuilders were able to do, they've surpassed it. And, for the known names that go back generations, most of them either 1) got old and quit or, 2) tried to ramp up and compete with industrial-made brands or, 3) sold out. That's why the niche is small. What we now have is a rebuilding, not a continuation of any long line back to an Italian maker or three. Before the vaporization situations, the bicycles "like the ones we make" were everywhere. Mining ideas was easier. Finding a job was easier. Making it a career was easier. However, while I read mostly excuses for why someone can't do this because there are production jobs to be had, or that factories don't make the bicycle they want to learn to make, someone somewhere is at a work station learning the tasks that glass-half-empty cats love to bemoan because they're not sexy positions. Again - you don't learn how to make frames by working for a framebuilder. You'll see work getting done. If time allows, maybe your hand will be held. But if you want a career, you have to make the investment. The whining gets a tad old after a while. Leave your network. Move abroad. Work for free at these place making the price point units everyone is racing on. The opportunities are still there.

[trentschler]

snip

However, while I read mostly excuses for why someone can't do this because there are production jobs to be had, or that factories don't make the bicycle they want to learn to make, someone somewhere is at a work station learning the tasks that glass-half-empty cats love to bemoan because they're not sexy positions. Again - you don't learn how to make frames by working for a framebuilder. You'll see work getting done. If time allows, maybe your hand will be held. But if you want a career, you have to make the investment. The whining gets a tad old after a while. Leave your network. Move abroad. Work for free at these place making the price point units everyone is racing on. The opportunities are still there.

You can pester people for a job, too. At some point you'll get hired. There are start-ups all the time, too. Like "All City" and so on. Below is a company that just does design and two that do production in Brooklyn. I know we're talking about building bike frames ourselves, but maybe you'd like to design cool bikes and have someone else do the fabrication. Think Velo Orange, Rivendell, etc.

Brooklyn Bicycle Company

Brooklyn Machine Works

Worksman Cycles

Cannondale has 22 openings:

Cannondale Corporate

We're not talking bespoke bikes here! In a big corporate environment such as this there are always politics and crap galore, but there are also design and manufacturing resources that only a big corportation can offer. Plus, 401K, health insurance - things that get more important as you get older, maybe have a family, etc.

[e-RICHIE]

This is exactly what I'm talking about atmo. Thanks Tony!

You can pester people for a job, too. At some point you'll get hired. There are start-ups all the time, too. Like "All City" and so on. Below is a company that just does design and two that do production in Brooklyn. I know we're talking about building bike frames ourselves, but maybe you'd like to design cool bikes and have someone else do the fabrication. Think Velo Orange, Rivendell, etc.

Brooklyn Bicycle Company

Brooklyn Machine Works

Worksman Cycles

Cannondale has 22 openings:

Cannondale Corporate

We're not talking bespoke bikes here! In a big corporate environment such as this there are always politics and crap galore, but there are also design and manufacturing resources that only a big corportation can offer. Plus, 401K, health insurance - things that get more important as you get older, maybe have a family, etc.

[Rody]

But if you want a career, you have to make the investment. The whining gets a tad old after a while. Leave your network. Move abroad. Work for free at these place making the price point units everyone is racing on. The opportunities are still there.

and that's the rub. It takes significant personal sacrifice to make a career out of this gig today.

There's nothing sexy or praise worthy of the path that must be taken to find success.

Honestly, if I was looking to start a career opportunity now, this would not be it.

To turn a dime in this business is hard work, takes years to develop YOU as the product, and carries a ton of responsibility with it.

Want to enjoy framebuilding? Build for yourself, enjoy the process, be satisfied with creating something with your hands, and learn to politely tell friends and others NO.

Best wishes to all in finding the path best suited for ya...this has been an interesting thread.

cheers,

rody

[e-RICHIE]

It was always a significant personal sacrifice atmo.
Framebuilding has no tradition in North America.
Those who wanted a piece of it had to find factories that would take them in.
People seem to think that framebuilders trained framebuilders-to-be.
That's quaint, and misplaced, and wrong.
Maybe 2-3 were the exceptions.
All others came up in and out of the production food chain.

and that's the rub. It takes significant personal sacrifice to make a career out of this gig today.

[sk_tle]

It was always a significant personal sacrifice atmo.
Framebuilding has no tradition in North America.
.

I think the trade benefitted from the MTB boom in the 80's 90's. I guess this is the reason the niche looks bigger in the US than in europe.

[e-RICHIE]

I think the trade benefitted from the MTB boom in the 80's 90's. I guess this is the reason the niche looks bigger in the US than in europe.

The improvements in road bicycles as we know them can all be traced back to the MTB companies who, when that niche tanked, diversified into the the then new (for them) road market. Not all made the cut. The energy flow went through everything. There were no traditions or conventions. Materials, joining techniques, and fab processes all take their cues from that transition era that also began the long death spiral for this niche's past.

[Mike Mcdermid]

The improvements in road bicycles as we know them can all be traced back to the MTB companies who, when that niche tanked, diversified into the the then new (for them) road market. Not all made the cut. The energy flow went through everything. There were no traditions or conventions. Materials, joining techniques, and fab processes all take their cues from that transition era that also began the long death spiral for this niche's past.

Can i ask a question then that i have long long wondered because i come from the Tig and Glue end of the spectrum (and sure i know what a fillet braze will take in terms of fatigue testing i have a big printout of results from those tests) but why is it that people buy a lightweight tubeset and then stick it together with blobs of a material almost the same density as lead? were in an era where someone can make a steel bike as light as a carbon one with some pretty unique options on what else they could stick in there

I get the traditional lug thing (well hell no i dont its still someone buying off the shelf parts and missing out on making them their own) but filing the hell out of a joint ? to make it smooth I dont get

Secondly arent some of the high ups that control the crayon kiddies in the Industrial design departments (thats where they dream up shapes before trying to squuege the carbon in the mold and letting engineers fix the shi) from that era, you would think there might be some sympathies other than bringing out a merckx anniversary bike every year in molded plastic?

[Will Neide]

........ when that niche tanked.....

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[e-RICHIE]

Can i ask a question then that i have long long wondered because i come from the Tig and Glue end of the spectrum (and sure i know what a fillet braze will take in terms of fatigue testing i have a big printout of results from those tests) but why is it that people buy a lightweight tubeset and then stick it together with blobs of a material almost the same density as lead? were in an era where someone can make a steel bike as light as a carbon one with some pretty unique options on what else they could stick in there <cut>

Why?
Romance, that's why.
Misplaced, though it might be.
My own reason was articulated a few days ago in one of my other posts.
No romance here.

[Mike Mcdermid]

Why?
Romance, that's why.
Misplaced, though it might be.
My own reason was articulated a few days ago in one of my other posts.
No romance here.

By gum lad.....that's Yorkshire for nail on head, hadn't seen it but that was the crux of it mon dieu

[mothattack]

I started with lugs and moved to fillet brazing pretty exclusively. The cost to move to tig was a consideration for sure. Now I don't remember a time when my wrist didn't hurt, so there is also that romantic bit of fillet brazing you miss out on with tig.

[edoz]

TIG has a higher cost of entry, which is half the reason I started out that way. The romantic side, comes from my youthful lust of Mountain Goats and Ritcheys. Now that I have a TIG machine, I'm set in my ways and I don't feel like changing my current product. Sure, I'll add titanium and maybe aluminum at some point, but I actually like the process of fillet brazing.
The super lightweight tubes? I don't mess with them. I quote The Book of Garro when I say a heavy bike is faster than a broken bike.

[bencooper]

It's partly aesthetic, I like larger fillets of brass, though nowadays I file them less and tend to just leave them as they are. It's partly that that's what I know - really should take the time to learn TiG properly, but too busy building stuff for customers.

[Doug Fattic]

My problem with this discussion thread is that it is unlikely to include voices that haven’t made tons of frames but are in business anyway and still do a good job. Once a certain volume is quoted as a baseline by the prolific veterans, anything less would suggest someone doesn’t quite know what they are doing even if they do. Only some of them do inferior work. The difference between the good the bad and mediocre is not based on how many frames they have made (even though the more they make the faster and better in some ways they’ll get). It will be based on training, talent and attitude.

I was a high school teacher when I went over to England to learn how to build frames in 1975. It was important to me to learn from the best (that was willing to teach me) so it was a long search. My purpose for going was to be able to teach the craft back here in the States where the knowledge of how to do it had been largely lost. I wanted to challenge the common understanding that to get started one had to build many frames over years before they had the technical skills to do one at a professional level on their own. What I believed might be possible was that if the information could be learned from a master (a key point) and then well organized and presently clearly a student could make a frame that would last for years on their 1st try and have a solid foundation to make more later. Of course the standard quality of a classic English made frame in the 70’s was not as high as today’s.

In the 39 years I’ve been teaching students how to make frames my theory has proven to be essentially true. However I now recognize that everyone starts with a very different amount of inherited ability and/or transferable experiences. Some get it (referring to brazing and filing ability) within weeks (or even days) while others never will in years. This is why I have a problem with the status of professionalism being measured in units or time. The rate at which we learn will vary just like the Bell Curve used in statistics tells us it will.

What I think is missing in these discussions is a definition of the difference between an acceptable and unacceptable frame. In other words to make a successful frame you need to….. Without a stated goal it isn’t possible to know if you have arrived.

My goal for every student that makes takes my framebuilding class is to make a professional quality lugged or fillet brazed steel frame on their 1st try. I will quickly define this as something that fits their body and use. The brazing is done within the acceptable temperature range having completely covered all areas it should and is nowhere it shouldn’t be (i.e. clean shorelines). The main tubes are within a mm (give or take) of being in the same plane and the rear triangle and front fork put the wheels at the same tolerance within that same plane. It is filed so it looks attractive.

What experience does mostly is make one faster and more efficient. This increases the chances of profitability and whether or not one can make it as a business. But with the right training and ability a professional quality frame can be made on the 1st try. Of course there is a lot more to making a business profitable than decent fabrication skills.

[devlin]

As Rody said, interesting thread. Mainly because it's pointing straight at me if I was honest with myself.

Just to be clear I am not whining or lamenting the situation we have in Australia or using it as an excuse. I am merely presenting the situation as I see it as a conversation point. I've seen some great responses to it which provide ideas and solutions.

I am unaware of a production shop in Australia. I will do some digging around though. As Rody said none of the frame builders that could provide the right instruction really can afford the time to teach me. I could pull the anchor and move to the US but I have four young people here that it really isn't an option. If they weren't part of my life I would have been knocking on doors in the US long ago. My marriage has already suffered because of my desire to get out of the office and make things with my own hands. I now have this internal pressure on myself to make this happen because I've already made (and possibly misguided) a huge sacrifice to follow where I need to go with my life. Yes, I do wear my heart on my sleeve.

I am fortunate to have Dazza in my corner for some guidance. He has been incredibly generous with his time. Keith at Kumo has been brutally honest as I asked him to be.

In saying all of that I do realise the temper needed to slow things down a bit and develop the skills. I certainly appreciate the time for everyone in this thread even though it's not about me specifically.

As Mike's question. I'm sticking with lugs because the method is 'easy'. If I did fillet brazing it would only be when I could braze without having to finish and eventually I will learn TIG. Another side project I have is in custom carbon. That is still very early days and I have a shit ton to learn before I even start looking at buying materials.

[mmoore]

Upon riding my custom frame, that I built, this morning and the wife mentioning it yesterday.... is it bad form for a "builder" to stencil or graphic their frame with their last name or similar if you don't intend to build more bikes or to sell them?


M

[nspace]

No. Call it/paint it how you want. It's your creation.

[Dancingbear]

Upon riding my custom frame, that I built, this morning and the wife mentioning it yesterday.... is it bad form for a "builder" to stencil or graphic their frame with their last name or similar if you don't intend to build more bikes or to sell them?


M

Your downtube. Your choice. If anyone here thinks it's "bad form" on a frame that you built in it's entirety, they need to get over themselves.

[zank]

my first frame had gray primer and my name in letter stickers from staples on the down tube. and seat tube. you know...the ones that you put on a mailbox or something.