r/Framebuilding

Hello, I made my first frame, and while roughing out the brass, I noticed some large cracks. Is it salvageable?

Took my first attempt at bull moose bars and chopped it up. Upright not up tight!

Is it safe?

Hello! Long text ahead, sorry about that.

TLDR: TIG weld or TIG braze v-brake mounts to mountless frame, and should it be on the seatstays or on the chainstays, as it was prior?

I got this frame to build a bike for my girlfriend, it was all I could find in her size, with a derailleur hanger. Initially, I thought it was a 700c and that it runs with u-brakes, but it's a 26" and some knucklehead chopped off the v-brake mounts. It has some mild angle grinder damage (visible in pic 3), but it didn't go all the way through the tube (no holes).

I also have this unusable fork (stem stuck in steerer). I want to cut the v-brake mounts from the fork (pic 4) and weld them to the frame. I have good TIG welding skills and the possibility to TIG braze as well (CuSi3). No oxy setup unfortunately, and no possibility of getting to one. There is no issue with putting in the effort for all this, for me it's worth it.

The frame had its v-brake mounts on the chainstays. I will reinforce the affected areas with two pieces of chainstay from another chopped frame. The dilemma is:

1. Should I weld the v-brake mounts where they were, over the reinforced chainstays, or on the seat stays, for the sake of fitment and convenience? Will add braze-ons as needed.

2. Weld or braze? I was thinking either to TIG braze the reinforcements and weld the mounts over, or braze the mounts to the seat stays. My concerns are the failure of brazing due to lateral braking forces applied to the mounts (maybe solve with a brake bridge?), OR the seatstays warping and losing integrity due to welding. Am I thinking too much or should I just go for whatever?

On previous TIG brazing tests, the tube bends before the silicon bronze breaks, but I don't know how those repeated braking forces affect the joints.

Thanks in advance.

A while back, I damaged the paint around my rack mounting eyelets & the exposed steel started to get a bit orange. I was doing some work on the rear end today & started picking at the peeling paint around the eyelets. The rust had crept quite a bit further than I had expected underneath the paint. I filed/sanded it back a bit & put some clear nail polish over the area to try and seal it up a bit.

Any tips on how to deal with creeping rust from (inevitable) dings/surface damage?

The bike lives inside but sees some pretty considerable use in all weather.

I'm no expert on dropouts at all, but yesterday I wanted to buy from Paragon and the shipping was almost twice the price of the product (I live in Argentina). Do you know of any repository for STP, STEP, or DXF files so I can send them to be milled near my house? It's frustrating, lately I can't even find classic road dropouts in my country.

Hi everyone,

I had a small crack on my handmade italian carbon road bike frame and took it to a very well-known and respected carbon framebuilder for repair (he's not who made the frame). He took one look and told me he couldn't work on it because the frame is defective and it's dangerous.

He pointed out what looks like plastic (possibly packaging material from the carbon layup process) embedded inside the tubes in the damaged area and possibly in the entire frame. According to him, this shouldn't be there and makes the frame compromised and weak.

is it really a manufacturing defect? the person who made the frame is also very know for making good frame made in italy... did he messed up an entire frame in that way?

Any insight would be really appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Finished work on the track fork. The dropouts, crown, and reinforcements are also custom.

Edit: Thanks for all the answers everyone!

My Surly Disc Trucker 26”, size 58cm, from 2014 is too long. I’m 187cm, with long legs compared to upper body, and I’ve never really gotten my bike to fit, but even though, I’ve crossed continents with it, so it has a high sentimental value. It also still is really fun to ride as a daily commuter.

I have a friend working with welding. I’m thinking about shortening the reach from the saddle to the front by something like 5-20 cm (not sure yet). Cut the tubes (by the green rectangles), shorten them, possibly make the lower one have a higher angle (by cutting and reattaching at a new angle at the blue mark) as to not hit the front tire. I know it’s probably more sensible to just buy a new bicycle, but I’m not ready to leave this one just yet.

Would this idea even work, or what would be the consequences?

I’m in the middle of a road bike project that I want to use to promote my work, so I’m looking for "universal" dropouts that can accommodate both vintage axles (image 1) and thru-axles (image 2). Do you know of any specific models? My main doubt is whether this versatility would also apply to front dropouts.

Hi everyone. I have a track fork and frame that I want to make street-legal by installing a front brake. The problem is that there’s no hole in the front of the fork—or rather, there was one, but it’s been plugged with a bolt that seems hard to remove, and I don’t want to drill into a rare fork. Do any experienced riders have a solution?

I absolutely need help with it, Reddit help me restore this beauty

Long story short, I bought another 26er frame for 40€ (including mounted Italian square threaded BB, stem and bars)

It looks by the decal that it should be Triple butted. I also haven't seen another sticker like that (I presume it must be from 90/95 latest).

Frame it's light, lighter than my RockHopper91, quite Racey design wise, tbh it's very much compact, way shorter tubes than a normal size M, wish bone and it's a 1 1/8 headset.

I thought it could be something like a Muddy Fox? But I have honestly haven't seen anything like that on the vintage catalogues, so I'm back to square 1

Last year this bike was stolen from me and a month ago I got it back thanks to a great bike community in my city!

The original cargo rack was gone (https://www.reddit.com/r/CargoBike/s/2MS324NVuM) so this is version 2.2! A little more conventional than the previous version but a custom bag and mounting system is in the works. Still needs a fair bit of clean up but it's functional for now and I'm so pleased.

Let’s get it out the way…The welds are bad I know, please enjoy them :)

A few months back I picked up this size small on one pompino, in near perfect condition. I’ve been riding an old beat up pompino for tracklocross and while the fork fits 40c tyres, it’s a tight squeeze at the back. Mismatched tyres sizes are just ugly.
So when I found this frame at a local bike shop for £50 I wanted to test out the idea of cold setting the chain stays for that extra couple mm of comfort and matching tyres.

It worked no problem, I don’t really care if the material is weaker, it’s steel. One day I’ll glue it back together.

I didn’t really need two tracklocross bikes, nor do I want to build two 135mm fixed gear hubs up. So why not tack on a derailleur hanger? And a couple cable guides.

Done over the course of an evening, with my best excuse for a jig as I could come up with.
A stick welder I found in the skip years ago.
And the fingers of a crusty and beyond saving Dawes frame.

“Ich mag wenn euch das nervt” ;)

I was inspired by u/wormfabrication to have a go at a bilaminate stem. I have a waterford lugged bike that could use modern bars, but a 1" clamp with 31.8mm bars is kind of rare.

I tig welded the lugs because the steerer clamp is the same diameter of the extension so a braze wouldn't be strong enough. I also trust my tig welding more than my fillet brazing.

Lugs could be thinner and shorter, but lately some of the things I've built have been more flexible than I want. Since I have my position dialed it's built so I don't need spacers.

M5 bolts are much less bulky than m6, huge credit to worm for that idea.

Next will probably just be fillet brazed, or half and half. We'll see...