Has anybody built a fame using TIG or learned to TIG weld for building bikes.I am looking for a suitable course or tutor,Whilst visiting Bespoked Bristol, I spoke with a chap who mentioned teaching and it kind of ignited the idea to do this in my head.

Can’t for the life of me find the details of the firm or indeed any trace, and it’s been a good couple of months that I have been researching this.

I actually bought a TIG set from R Tech with my final pay cheque.

Anyone? Ideas?

Learning framebuilding is 95% practice – you’ve already got the kit, why not get some bits of tubing and just have a go?

Ohh…a TIG welder 😀 Which one did you buy ? Is it HF start ?

Most local collages have tig courses, not specifically bike related ones but they’ll be good enough

Tig is the most demanding of the joining techniques, lugs and fillet brazing are the norm on frame building courses as chances are you will end up with a usable finished product.

Spend your time with a set of practice tubes from Ceeway, get a pedal, move fast and remember to breath.

I’ve just done a course at my local technical college. 2 hours every Monday in term time, 6-8pm. You could have a go at all the different welding disciplines and they have all the kit for you to play/ practice with. It was very good, I got my MMA level 1 certificate (that I’ve been doing at work for the past 8 years) and had a go at MIG and TIG, techniques differ somewhat but skills are transferable between the disciplines. I’d definitely recommend it if you have the time and inclination. Although it sounds like you may be after a fast track or intensive course, which do exist although I am clueless as to where you would inquire.

Thanks for the tips

I am on a welding forum also seeking advice. A lot of the folks on there seem to be welders who make what could only be described as fabrications way out of the size I am looking at ,Think oil rig pipework and the like, though there are some that have built a few bikes.Most of the courses are for coded welding or just general fabrication.

Whilst they are helpful a lot of the advice has been to try and get some tuition from someone doing something similar . I was hoping there would be somewhere local as most of the courses as mentioned above by CK are for brazing frames.

There is information on the web but even then most of the sites ar American and seem to be roll cage or experimental aircraft, again it’s plain gauge tube and still quite a bit thicker than bicycle tubes.

Ben I have tried this and well basically whilst im sure we all have to start somewhere it wasn’t great!!!

Daveport the one I got was this

http://www.r-techwelding.co.uk/welding_equipment/Tig_Welder/TIG_Welder_Digital_Series_210A_ACDC

It will also weld aluminium which is another area I would like to try

Where are you based?

Have a look at this.

http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/tig-welding-bike.html

This BB to seatpost was done with a 40 year old transformer tig with a very dodgy HF unit and it was difficult to stop the arc wandering at low amps

I’ve brought a new R-tech which produces much better welds.

Just practice.

CK that is awesome, Is it one of yours, where did you learn

thepodge I actually live in a place called Oughtibridge .

Edit , Actually Citizen Kane I found your bike thread on the welding forum 🙂

The only way to become a good welder is to practice, i used to work for my family fabrication business and would have been only to glad to show you how to start, so maybe if you were to contact your local small fabrication shop you might find someone who could help. If you took your welding gear with you they could show you how to set it up and let you go practice. There is more to frame building than just welding but it is a skill you will need.

Phil, you live about a mile from me, I’ll email you some info

thepodge Thanks

Phil,

Self taught with one Y size bottle of Argon. Best money I spent was on a water cooled Weldcraft WP20 torch, much lighter and much more flexable cable than an air cooled WP9. Add a gas lens to that as well. You will need a pedal.

I can’t find your email in profile.

Mail me on podge1000@hotmail.com

Email sent thepodge.

CK I read all 14 pages of your bicycle thread over on the welding forum, I posted my first attempts up there.

I have a foot pedal and gas lense and a wp9 torch, money is a bit tight now though so maybe a different torch will have to wait. I have spent months reading up and watching videos but haven’t quite had that moment of clarity where it all comes together hence ,seeking guidance hands on now.

Been a tig welder since I left school about fifteen years ago, best advice is practice practice practice. I did c and g 229 at college but to be honest the Internet is your oyster. I didn’t really learn much their that you couldn’t read. It is nice to have someone watch you and point things out though so after some practice make fiends with your local fab shop (where you’ve been getting tube off cuts) and ask the welder to watch.
Wanted to try some frame building but so far I’ve been put off by lack of time and jig building costs.

Oh and checkout some of the American frame building websites and their associated YouTube clips too, very interesting info on weld order etc

Phil, had a look at your welds and its time to move onto bike tubes. You can already lay down a good looking bead, the challange with bike frames is the wall thickness and positions you need to get into to gain access. Cheap tubes from Ceeway are less than a fiver each. Dont forget to degrease as part of the prep, avoid brake cleaners for this. I use 1mm 312 stainless filler, flows a bit better than normal steel.

I learnt the basics of tig welding at Coventry Welding Workshop through a vocational retraining scheme. I was able to take my machine (also an R-tech) up there and learn on that which was useful. Having learnt on flat plate it was just a case of practice, practice, practice on tubes. Learning to weld tubes together is the fun part, cutting all the mitres required is not so much fun – i spent over a week preping mitred tubes to take with me to get the most out of the course.

The framebuilding forum on mbtr: http://forums.mtbr.com/frame-building/ is one of the best sources of framebuilding info on the internet. I just worked my way through all the archived posts for any relevant info, and slowly learnt the basics (theory) of framebuilding by this method, and then put that in to practice with trial and error.

If you’ve done the background research then if you ask questions on the mtbr framebuilding forum you can get some really helpful feedback from some very experience framebuilders. I was able to get a critique of my welds prior to welding my frame up which was invaluable (also might be useful to you as is discusses the R-tech settings i was playing with): http://forums.mtbr.com/frame-building/tig-joint-critique-774061.html

A foot pedal, smaller torch with flexible hose (you dont have to wrestle with the torch/cables then – have a look at CK Worldwide) and using a gas lense all help make things easier and help improve results.

philxx1975

Andrew Denham at The Bicycle Academy was going to get Burf of BTR to teach Tig welding in Frome.

Andrew Denham at The Bicycle Academy was going to get Burf of BTR to teach Tig welding in Frome.

I have found a frame builder locally, thank you for the tip. I had seen the course by the Bicycle Academy but it is too far away and too expensive for me now .