Mechanically, I don't think mitering tubes and brazing lugged joints together is especially complicated, so any klutz like me could assemble something that looks like a bicycle and would be rideable, especially if I had a model from which to copy the geometry. But, as the old saying goes, the essence is in the details. How good would my mitering be? How complete would my brazing be? How straight would my frame end up? I'm sure I would fall short of a mid level production frame like a Trek or a Fuji, and be miles behind a really good framebuilder in integrity of build. And then the important part: what would it look like?
I recall an old article in Bicycling where an ordinary joe off the street built his own lugged steel frame, assisted and taught by Bruce Gordon. (Yes, Bicycling has fallen far from it's former heights.) With Bruce watching and setting up the geometry, mitering and brazing sounded reasonably simple, but when our hero was working on the lugs, he couldn't get the seat lug to look decent. Too much on one side, to little on the other, somehow it just wouldn't come out. Bruce rescued him by drawing two lines freehand on the side of the lug where the curves should go. Now how long does it take you to learn to do that?
Tom Adams, appreciative of the art and the artisans in Kansas City
Maybe my post will sound like I am just jealous but is it really that hard to build a bike frame? Or could it be that it is too much work for what you earn doing it? I started out in the classic auto restoration business and believe me making some old rusty hunk of junk into a show vehicle is no easy task (though not as difficult as building a bike frame) Every shop I know of that had been around forever doing show quality work got out of it to do collision repair since that is where the money is. I have a feeling the bike industry is the same way. I may be wrong but my gut feeling is that many of us could be master frame builders but it doesn't pay enough to feed our families. Not only that who would teach us. Sam D.