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Day 2 at the Bicycle Academy, was predominantly a day of mitring tubes, accompanied with plenty of workshop lubricant and biscuits

No photos of the biscuits because I dont think they ever stayed still long enough!

The Bicycle Academy has a firm belief in teaching you to do things in ways you can cost effectively repeat at home. This means LOTS of hand cutting and filing to create the tube mitres. There aren't any pictures of this - just imagine a devilishly handsome man filing some tubing for several hours and you have the picture.

The old adage "Measure twice, cut once" definitely applies in this instance, and my coursemate Alan likes to add the additional caveat of "think three times" first. By the end of the day I had all of my front triangle tubes and my chainstays mitred, and it was time to tack it all together

Now yesterday's brazing masterclass seemed like an awfully long time ago when trying to tack the frame together - it's one thing knowing in your head where to point the torch, communicating that to your hands is quite another! but with some careful encouragement and nudging from Andrew and Chris (they're very good at this part) I ended up with this just before I was due to leave today.

 

It's starting to look like a bike now. Excited. Enthused. Cant wait for tomorrow!

Practice Makes Perfect..

I'll admit right now that my feelings over the last few days have been mixed swinging between "Of course I'm going to be fantastic, I'm the next <insert framebuilder> I just haven't found out yet, to "I'm going to be hopeless, I'll probably burn the workshop to the ground".

As it happens, the result was neither of the above. It turns out that brazing is a skill like any other that gets better with practice, and as with any skill you make the quickest strides forward in the early days

Day 1 is complete, and I feel like I've already achieved so much

During today

• I laid my first ever braze

• Moved on to joining a tube to a flat surface

• Formed my first tube-to-tube joint

 

• Tested the joint to destruction

 

 

• And Mitred some tubes

 

 
Which altogether feels like a heck of a lot to learn in a single day. However it's a credit to the teaching standards that none of it felt rushed, and that I feel like I could have a reasonable go at repeating it on my own already. Bear in mind the last time I worked a piece of metal in any way was a pre-GCSE metalwork class, and I'm 30 now, you can take all of this as a hearty recommendation.
 
It has rather punctured the mystique of the framebuilder - after all, I'm a bit cackhanded and I spend my working days driving a desk, the ideal place from which to lionise those near-mythical torchmen whose names adorn many a downtube. But if I can do it, I reckon anyone sober with two working hands can have a go (though apparently a couple of pints can make your brazing better - I'm not sure i'm ready for that yet).
 
Dont get me wrong, I'm not going to be knocking out frames in quantity any time soon, but I can guarantee it wont be long before one of my own is under me.
 
Roll on day 2!

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

Motivations

A born tinkerer with a love of bicycles extending back over half my life, I'm always on the lookout for new skills in the way of the bicycle. Since learning to build my own wheels a couple of years ago, the idea of building my own frames has crossed my mind a few times, but until recently the courses available for learning the basics (I'm an IT guy, not a metalworker - I'll be starting from scratch!) haven't really fitted in with what I'm looking to get from it - too focused on "build your dream bike" and not enough "here's how to build a frame, now go on and build a few".

However, late last year The Bicycle Academy started up crowdfunding. I didnt have the funds to get in for a course via the crowdfunding process, but I got myself put on the waiting list, and when spaces became available just before my 30th birthday, I thought nothing would make a better present-to-myself.

The Bicycle Academy is different from other framebuilding courses - You dont get to take the frame home, instead it goes to Africa and someone who really needs it. You get the skills passed down from a master of the art - no less than Brian Curtis, and you get to go back and use the space and the equipment after. I've already got an idea for something I want to build myself - I'm finding it hard not to get ahead of myself, I need to find out if I'm any good first!

I cant wait!