Bicycle Framebuilding the first year Part 1

The idea to build myself a bicycle frame permanently etched itself in my mind by spring 2007. It took about 6 months to become so indelible. I thought that if I could have the wherewithal to start building a frame by the end of the year I would be doing very well indeed. I started the hunt for the necessities for building a bicycle frame a search that will probably be never-ending.

Looking through endless photo galleries and watching videos of proper frame builders it seemed there were two schools of thought: building in a jig and building out of the jig. The latter makes a good flat surface absolutely necessary but you also need a jig to hold the tubes initially while tacking them. To simplify things I went out to look for a jig and decided to do without a surface plate for the time being. I got an affordable second-hand jig from a blacksmith with a beautiful old forge, with amazing machinery. He offered to turn down the fittings on the jig to the size tubes I would be using. He had been TIG welding mountain bikes in it.
We talked about how I would build the frames and thankfully he subtly pointed out that working in my cellar and in the flat would not work as I naively had thought and he suggested that I should come and use his facilities, for free! 

I have never won so much as five Euros in my life but I have had the good fortune to make invaluable acquaintances and this was definitely a special one. I’m eternally grateful for the kindness Hans and his family showed me and the wealth of information I took in during my visits there gave me a start I would otherwise never have had.

So my jig stayed where it was for the time being and I started building almost immediately. In the mean time I had bought tubes and parts. When I first visited Norbert Koehn’s website he was selling off large parts of his inventory so I wrote him an email asking him for a starter kit and some tubes for practising. I heard nothing more from him but a few days later to my surprise a big box of steel arrived with enough parts to build two bikes for an unbelievable 75 Euros. Later in the summer I visited him and most of his old stock was already gone. But nonetheless I took home a load of small parts and odds and ends that would come in very handy later for very reasonable money. This was the second stroke of good luck.

The third stroke of good luck was that I managed to find space in garage right next to our flat to work in. But that’s jumping the gun somewhat. In between were plenty of mishaps that could have been avoided on the way to making my first frame which by the way was finished before Christmas, the deadline I had set for starting.