Titanium frame building

[Shades of Titanium]

Hi guys, this is my first post here so go easy on me.

During the lockdown I've been looking at building my own titanium frame and the more I research into it, the more I think I would like to start my own bespoke ti frame building business.

I'm working on a business plan with my partner who has a lot of experience in sheet metal work (professionally) and is confident we could build a prototype frame.

I just wondered if you guys had any useful tips on frame building please? Have any of you welded a frame yourselves? How did it go? What did you learn?
Initially I'll be looking to order some ti tubes and do the mitre myself. I can access a workshop for the tig welding too.

Thanks a bunch...

 

[FrankCrank]

Is this a wind-up?

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

Have you made a bike frame before? if not, then starting off with titanium would be jumping in at the deep end big-style! From what I understand it's not the easiest metal to work and even the established names in the business had teething troubles with their early titanium frames.

Sadly frame building is not one of my skills so I'm not in a position to offer build tips. What I can say with confidence though is that if your partner has the skills to make a prototype, test, test and test again to make sure it works the way you expect and that it can stand up to the rigours of use before you commit to doing this as a business. For the money you will have to charge to be viable people will expect it to be perfect. If it's not, then things could go wrong financially very quickly.

 

[Rocky]

I'm not a framebuilder and have never had the desire so to be. However, I agree with what Phil says, titanium is notoriously difficult to work with - perhaps you might like to start with steel and see if you can make something from that before taking on the challenge of titanium.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

First tip is you’d need to offer a lifetime warranty on your frames.

 

[Venod]

I have worked with some top Titanium welders, it takes some practise to be good at it, good preparation and cleanliness are essential, have a read of this.

https://www.thefabricator.com/tubepipejournal/article/arcwelding/tig-for-titanium-tubing

 

[Cycleops]

You are very brave to start such an enterprise especially with titanium. Bit like learning to drive in a Ferrari. I think you should at least start a long apprentaship with a frame builder before attempting anything like this.

 

[rogerzilla]

Ti has a small niche among audaxers and conspicuous consumers. It's not a perfect frame material - carbon gives much higher performance, steel is field-repairable and modifiable, almost anything is more cost-effective. Ti frames break as often as anything else does. The market is not large.