Oak Frame Building Courses

[Jeanett Fite]

Afriend just bought a tig welder and then watched a lot of youtube videos. He progressed from knocking together a few tables, to playing around with an old dead frame, and has now built a quite convincing road single speed. Next up he is building a slacked out 29er for a friend.

I am frame building curious. I like the idea of it. But I do not kid myself that that the first frame I build will be perfect. If you want a Curtis AM7, definitely buy one, because it will take many attempts just to make something even passable. Maybe you can enjoy riding the Curtis whilst also learning to build your own frames.

I sometimes like the idea of spending a week somewhere making my own frame but that sort of money would either buy a *really* nice custom frame or a load of metalworking equipment for me to play around with.

My understanding (not been on any frame courses) was that 631 is 853 without the final heat treatment. You still get the air hardening at the joints, but the UTS of the tube is lower so maybe more dent / buckling prone if using very thin tubes.

TIG vs brazing is usually defined by what equipment you have / what you prefer to do. TIG is cleaner and quicker but harder for the novice to make quality safe joints (mickmcd will probably disagree on the last bit but he is a welding god and has a really good welder with lots of clever features). TIG also gets the best metallurgy out of joints in 853.

Your options for learning how to build a frame are wide open. You can piece together an education from books, the many random videos on YouTube, and bribing or hiring your local builder. You can also spring for the tuition at a full-on frame building school. Some people combine some of these by learning general welding or brazing at a local community college and then fine tuning that with bike specific information from various sources.

A truly unique experience, with 1-to-1 tuition, using quality hand tools and jigs, you'll be able to make a made-to-measure lugged steel frame, a completely bespoke frame that is for life...that offers an unbelievable riding experience...making cycling memories!

The courses today are taught by either Peter Bird or Robert Wade, both very experienced frame builders who produce Swallow bespoke frames & Ironbridge Bicycles and design the Landescape range of aluminium and carbon fibre frames.

A tube-set, lugs, bottom bracket, frame ends, forks, fork crown and steerer (if required), braze-ons and bosses for the type of frame you are building, flux, brazing rod, silver solder, gas and air. We will discuss your exact requirements and then order or supply these for you. To ensure compatibility of all frame parts we encourage you not to buy these from other suppliers.

That depends on the tubing and style, but from approximately 250 for a Reynolds 525 or approximately 380 for a Reynolds 853 race frame. Forks range from 120 to 180. Frame parts again do vary from around 50 to over 150 depending on types of lugs, crowns, frame ends, and BB shells.

Nice as they are, they do require very accurate and clean brazing, something that is not easy to do on your first frame. Simple plain lugs, fork crown and BB shell are the order of the day, and there are quite a few variations.

Stainless parts require silver soldering, so are outside of the scope of your first frame. Filing and cleaning up lugs plus polishing lugs adds about another 2-3 hours work per lug, and they have to soldered very cleanly. So again outside the scope of a first frame and a weeks course.

It requires very advanced techniques and skills and is quite time-consuming. If you can convince us that you have the appropriate skills and experience, would we certainly will consider this request. Experience can include a previous course with ourselves or another quality frame building course or if you have done any brazing before. Welding is quite a different technique, so although there is some heat control, it is not quite the same. However, please do contact us to discuss. We do suggest that on a 5-day course (due to the extra time required for brazing and filing) that we use a standard BB shell and the three main frame joints are fillet brazed.

This is definitely a two week build-time due to being lug-less, the sheer number of joints and is not for the faint-hearted. It requires very advanced techniques and skills and is time-consuming. Only if you can convince us that you have appropriate skills and experience, would we consider this request.

As yet there is no UK qualification in bicycle frame building. You will have been taught the basic skills by an experienced frame-builder, but you will require a lot more skills and experience before you could consider becoming a frame builder by yourself.

A ride able frame that will require painting, photos of you building it, some great memories and a notebook full of notes and techniques describing how to build a frame. We provide the initial outline of the techniques and the course structure to you once you have paid your deposit.

The deposit is non-refundable if you cancel. We will always try to accommodate a change of date within a reasonable time scale. If this is not possible, then you may have to wait longer for suitable date.

The balance of the course fee must be paid at least 4 weeks before the agreed start date of the course. This is non-refundable if you cancel. We will always try to accommodate a change of date within a reasonable time scale. If this is not possible, then you may have to wait longer for suitable date.

If booking a place within 4 weeks of the start date of a course the full fee must be paid in time of booking. This is non-refundable. We will always try to accommodate a change of date within a reasonable time scale. If this is not possible, then you may have to wait longer for suitable date.

We will make every effort to accommodate requests for specific material choices. However, we reserve the right to substitute materials and parts of an equal or superior specification, if the original choice is not available.

The material cost will be calculated once a frame design has been agreed. If there are any variation in the agreed material specification, or requirement for additional materials during the course, these must be paid for by the end of the course.

During the class, students drafted out their frame designs in BikeCAD, printed out miter cuts, and got to work. Based on the way Megan was taught, which was to do everything by hand, students hand-filed steel tubes to practice both mitering and brazing before taking their newly acquired skills to their pile of tubes.

Students spent a lot of time between vices and the frame jig during this first year but, for our upcoming class in October, our friends over at SRAM came through huge and donated a brand new Cobra Framebuilding Jig to CMA. Now, there will be two jigs on hand!

Enigma are a family firm that build beautiful custom titanium and steel bikes at their factory in Hailsham, East Sussex. In collaboration with Geoff Roberts (more of him later!) they run a 5 day course whereby, under his watchful eye and expert guidance, you mitre, braze, file, polish, and track your own beautiful steel frame. Unlike other similarly priced frame building courses that either donate your frame to an African charity (a worthy cause no doubt) or leave you with a shoddy amateur frame, the Enigma course effectively guarantees you a bike that you keep and will last you for life and is overseen by Geoff every step of the way.

Guys like Geoff are sadly a dying breed. Whilst some excellent young frame builders have emerged in the last few years, many start up solo after literally scratching the surface of the subject on a few courses like this. Their bikes win prizes based more on style over substance, but soon come apart or develop problems further down the road. To learn as Geoff did, the hard way over years and years of working for his Dad, you just know you can trust hurtling down a hill on anything carrying the Roberts name.

In this on-line course we offer a comprehensive overview of bicycle design and frame-building (either for custom or production series) exploring the most relevant areas of the process: from customer relationship, the selection of frame materials and bike components, the different building techniques, to the use of bicycle design software and main workshop tools.

There are a number of frame building courses offered around the world. Whether any of them are local to you depends on where you live. Here are a few links to check out. Hopefully, others can add more. United Bicycle Institute with campuses in Ashland, Oregon and Portland, Oregon. Bohemian Framebuilding School in Tucson, Arizona. Bamboo Bike Studio based in Brooklyn, New York, but with workshops offered in several places across North America. Yamaguchi Framebuilding School in Rifle, Colorado. Doug Fattic based in Niles, Michigan. He doesn't seem to have his own website. However, here's a video about his class:

Thanks for the info. I re-read my posting and realized that I didn't post my 'local' area. LOL. I am looking for a local frame building course/ tutor in the Guelph/ Waterloo Region, Ontario area. Sorry for any confusion.

While there may not currently be any local framebuilding schools in the Guelph/ Waterloo area, there are still local options for acquiring some of the individual skills used in frame building. For example, you can learn welding through Conestoga College's Continuing Education Program.

On the other hand, since most people don't have a local framebuilding school at their disposal, people that do want to learn the trade will often travel to attend these unique schools. Most schools recognize that students are coming from out of town and will suggest options for lodging and also structure the experience for intensive learning in a relatively short period of time.

I have been intrigued with timber-frame building since reading a Ted Benson book many years ago, so when the opportunity to build a new house presented itself, I decided that it was time to give it a try.

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