Getting Started There are a number of steps I took before I even ordered my first tubeset. First was reading and understanding the frame building process. Second, I had to decide on a frame geometry which is a challenging task. Finally, I had to learn to braze. Learning about the frame building process was the first stage for me. My friend LINK{Joe Walish, http://web.mit.edu/jwalish/www/} managed to get Richard Talbot's "Designing and Building Your Own Frameset" through inter-library loan. I read it cover to cover, but it didn't contain enough detail for me to understand all the steps. The next thing I did was order Tim Paterek's "Paterek Manual" on frame building. This book is much more detailed, and helpful. I highly recommend reading this book if you plan to build a frame. The books are helpful because they show how to hold the parts in alignment while you join them. They also give an ordered sequence of steps so that you don't end up painting yourself into a corner. In addition to the books, I subscribed to the LINK{framebuilders, http://www.phred.org/mailman/listinfo/framebuilders} email list. This is an amazing resource. Dozens of professional and amature frame builders, read and post to this list with lots of helpful comments. I try not to email the list unless I have a unique question, since there's a lot of traffic some times and most answers can be found in the LINK{archives, http://search.bikelist.org/}. I listened in on this email list for a few months before I gathered a good understanding of the process. I also needed to learn how to braze. Brazing is one way of joining metal, where you join two pieces of parent metal with a filler metal. You heat up the parent metal, and melt the filler metal into the joint. The parent metal does not melt, but if the parent metal is prepared properly, the filler will stick to it like glue. I practiced filet brazing 90 deg T joints of 1 inch x .035 chromoly tubing. I was using Gax Flux C-04 rod with Type B blue paste flux. The first joints were pretty ugly, but I learned to control the flame and find the right temperature which is between not hot enough to melt the rod, and hot enough to boil zinc out of the rod. After each joint, I destructively tested the joint. I used two 4 foot long cheater bars, and stuck them into the pipes. I then bent the joint back and forth until the pipes became separated. The first couple joints broke at the filler. Either the filler peeled off the steel, or they cracked. These were bad joints. When the filler cracked, it was because the filler was weaken by over heating. When the filler peeled, it was because the steel was not hot enough for the filler to bond to the steel. Eventually, I made some joints that did not break during my testing. After bending the pipes back and forth many times, the tube itself tore apart about 0.75 inches from the joint. This is the kind of failure you're looking for. The joint is actually stronger than the heat affected steel. I can't write much about brazing now because there's so much to write. What I can say is: practice it enough that you're confident with your joints. I made some mistakes, and you can read about them in the chapter: Mistakes & Learning. All the while I was learning to braze and reading about frame building, I was also trying to figure out what geometry I wanted in my frame. This is a surprisingly difficult task. I tried a number of online calculators like LINK{ErgoBike, http://www.bsn.com/Cycling/ergobike.html}, the Serrotta calculator and the Rivendell guideline, but they all came up with different answers. ErgoBike said I should have a 57cm c-c seat tube, and a 57cm c-c top tube. Rivendell said I should have a 62cm seat tube! Needless to say, I was confused. Ultimately, I ended up buying and riding a bunch of bikes with different geometries. I had to ride each bike wfor a while before I knew how it fit. My friends thought I was crazy. Talk about handling... In the end I was riding a 57x57cm frame with a pretty tall stem, and my seat pretty far back. Using this, and the output from ErgoBike, I decided to build a frame with a 60cm seat tube and a 58cm top tube with a 72 deg seat angle. I hope to write more about my geomtry quest, but I must move on right now.