epicbike101

Hello forum,

I am looking for somebody who can weld me a lugged road bike frame together, only welding and tube cutting would be necessary, I would do all the rest, not necessary to be an experienced welder, but experience of couple of builds would be good..

I would provide the tubing(columbus spirit for lugs), lugs and all the materials, included silver brazing alloy sticks, if the welder would agree to use em...

Also if anybody would be interested I would need a welder once about every two months to do the same stuff on regular basis...
If somebody would be interested, we can talk about payment and details trough email bici2022 at yahoo.com
Thanks a lot

calstar 

I believe you need 50 posts before you can send/receive a pm. Ever consider taking bacon and eggs to a resturant and asking them to cook it for you? Probably wouldn't be interested and if they were I doubt that they would charge you less than full price of their breakfest using their bacon/eggs. You might get lucky but....just sayin'.

Brian

epicbike101

yes maybe so, but if somebodys interested my email is bici2022 at yahoo.com

Andrew R Stewart 

epicbike101- Your combining "welding" and "lugs, silver brazing alloy sticks" make the experienced guys beg off. Which do you mean, the differences are important to the guy doing the joining processes. Your willingness for a "welder" without experience but with a couple of frames under their belt further indicate your wanting to save $ but have a bike that's right.

While I can understand your hope and confidence, the manor that you state your goals won't collect many bids, at least from guys who know their stuff.

Why should a builder who is experienced want to have you do the finishing on a frame they built? Do you have some experience in filing, sanding, aligning, painting, threading, facing, reaming and that unspoken area... design... that you have not clued us into? Will your completion of our building make us look better, make a proper bike, make a safe bike?

Might a used frame be a better first step in the finishing and painting process? Is there some reason that a used frame can't serve you in this goal? Maybe you have already done this. If so do tell more. Why do you want a builder to have the liability but not the recognition or full income from his efforts? Or would you be willing to send the completed frame back to the builder for their approval, be it yes or nay? if nay could you live with never seeing the frame again? Andy.

mudboy

I'll do it for $5.

It'll cost $1500 if you want it to look like a bicycle when it's done.

unterhausen

I know someone that, in effect, offers this service. His cheapest price is $1500. No kidding.

mudboy

Wow, lucky guess on my part, though to be fair my cost breakdown would have been:

$1000 - build frame
$500 - cost of alcohol that it would take for me to deal with customer

unterhausen

I'm not offering up his name. No lugs anyway

ksisler

EpicBike101;

imho, your approach is not really a very good one if you want to end up with a really good bike at the end.

But to wag toward your question; generally a good frame/fork with all the required machine work (the stuff that a non-builder would not have the tools to do) done starts at about $1,500 and tops out at about $7,000 or so for a single. Most all of that cost is labor...and there is a lot of labor in making a quality frame.

I don't know of any builders (me included) who would use any rod provided by the customer. We have what works well for us in stock and would only use that, period. Contributions are fine, but most like would be just sold on craigslist (and builders would not feel obligated to tell you they had done this).

If you have a tubeset and/or a set of lugs you want to have used, some builders may be willing to receive them and examine them for applicability. However, until the customer and the builder have complete the several steps from concept to fittage, the specific tubes and sizes needed to achieve the design would not be known with any certainty...so not all that sure the provided tubes would be the right choices. As most builders can buy tubes/tubesets/lugsets for less than retail prices, I am doubtful you would save much if any, but you can add that to the discussion with a builder.

If you just happen to have fallen into a tubeset and/or a box of lugs... it happens. Then probably the most cost advantageous thing to do is to sell it on ebay or craigs. If it includes the decals and is a complete set, they bring a nice price there.

/K

MassiveD

Getting someone to "weld" your frames is not necessarily impossible, Bruce Gordon I believe has someone come in to do his TIG welding, of course he is supremely capable of doing all the rest of it. Most factories, have someone come in and do the welding, though that is an employee, but there isn't anything saying it all has to b done by one guy. A more extreme case was Sakkitt, where at some level we were to believe Beckman did a lot of the detailing of parts or something, seemed to be involved, but the frames we built to some extent by a frame builder who was an outside contractor. Bringheli at one time I heard, would make an unfinished frame for 500 you had to paint etc... I never was able to confirm that, so I don't know what was involved there.

The thing is why? If you want to save money, what is in the "weld" and cut tubes part of frame building, is pretty much everything. But maybe you have something serious in mind. So what you need to do is understand what goes into making a frame. There is a fair bit on youtube, you could also rent the Paterek lugs video, though he tends to overdo things a little and doesn't employ a lot of modern techniques or tools. Once you know what is involved, you need a business case. When you split production this way, costs don't go down, unless there are serious efficiencies, and dealing with small shops that is rarely the case. So you would need to somehow put together a case that your frames should cost a lot more, which is what Beckman did. Most frame builders are undercharging, so there is a place for someone who knows how to sell luxury. Or go the other route, China. But with a solid understanding of building, and pricing, and an ability to get your price, you would then be able to go to a builder and make a deal that makes sense.

Beckman's deal was that he was a supremely experienced tourist, and the leader in the panniers business. He had the good idea that the load comes first, then how to carry it, then what bike to put under it. So he would be the ideal guy to decide what the bike should be, but he didn't want to get overly distracted from the pannier side. As an outsider I see several problems. The average tourist is cheap. Concentrating on tourists locks you into one market. I don't think the pricing ultimately held up. And the variety he was capable of producing in panniers essentially undercuts the idea of the kind of bike he wanted to make. The business was not there to support a high concept brand that would span essentially fast road bikes to mountain bikes. Which is the range his panniers were on. You would look at his heavy bags, and be willing to buy his heavy bike, but then you noticed he sold ultralite bags also, and those could be run on a regular non-tank bike, so what did you need his bike for? But all I am saying is there can be a case if you work deeply enough at it.

gereonb

@epicbike101
If you are in need of a welder then you will not need any lugs as lugged frames are "brazed".

Welding means to melt the two metals together in a type of fusion process, this is generally done on thicker tubes made of Stainless or Aluminium.
Brazing means to melt a filler (silver or brass) which connects the tubes using lugs, this is great for steel frames and you can use ridiculously thin tubing as the heat is much lower so distortion is not an issue.

If you get your terms right in the beginning then you are likely to get better results. I would learn a bit more about the process by reading some PDFs or websites if i were you.