Frame Building (Bicycle)

The 5 day course caters for absolute beginners, and no experience of brazing or welding is needed to attend our course. As long as you are practical and are confident in using hand tools them we will be able to teach you how to build a frame.

The course is taught by Martyn Hay, a frame builder with over 20 years of experience at Lock's of Sandwich, building expedition bikes, touring bikes, tricycles, tandems and recumbents.

There are only 2 places on each course, book early to avoid disappointment.

What you can build.
On the course you can build your own steel frame road, track, trekking, cyclo-cross, expedition or hard tail mountain bike frames.

We teach you to build in steel and we offer a choice of Reynolds 525, 631 and 853 and Columbus tubesets. (You can't build in Reynolds 953).

Tandems, Recumbents, BMX and Trikes are beyond the scope of the 5 day course.

The frames will be constructed either using lugs or using a fillet brazing technique.

If you are making a lugged frame it may also be possible to build a set of lugged forks.

(The traditional lugged road bike is the easiest frame to build so you will have more time to complete the fork. If you are building a fillet brazed frame, you will not build a fork and will instead use the extra time available for much needed practice brazing.)

Course Times

The course runs between 9am - 5pm Monday to Thursday and 9am -1pm on Friday

Frame Design and Geometry

When you book your course we will contact you regarding the design and type of frame that you want to build. If you are not sure then we can help you out.

If you have an existing bike that is comfortable and you want to recreate it, either look online for the manufactures geometry tables, or bring it along and we can measure the angles and tubes.

If you have seen a frame you want or you have seen what you want but want it done a little bit differently we can help.

If you don't know what you want then don't despair. On arrival we will perform a basic bike fitting on you using the bikefitting.com system, this combined with Martyn's 20 years of frame building experience will ensure that you get the correct frame for you.

Pro Bike Fitting

If you would like a Pro Bike Fitting, then ideally you would need to come down before the course. It can be done on the first morning of the course but it will mean a later finish on Friday.

What you will learn

Frame Design

• what is the intended use of the frame
• what materials are most suitable
• best way to join the frame tubes together
• body measurement
• frame geometries:- frame size, frame angles and tube lengths

Tools and Safety

• workshop tour of the tools
• safety, what you should and shouldn't be doing in the workshop

Tubing

• how to decipher the tubing specifications on the data sheets
• what are single, double, triple butting and heat treatments
• which main tube, seat stays, seat tube designs to choose
• tubing preparation

Brazing and Welding Methods

• explanation of different techniques
• brazing techniques, torch control

Equipment Setup

• learn how the jig works
• get all the tools you need to hand

Alignment

• how to get everything straight and true

Inspection

• check to see if every thing has been brazed correctly
• cleaning up the frame
• finishing the frame ready for painting