Finding a good frame
What to look for in a good frame for build up.
Finding a good frame is really not that hard. There are thousands of great older steel frames out there hiding in plain site. There are however some frames that are just not worth the time and effort and probably are best going to the recycle bin. Let's talk about some of the tell-tale things to look for when looking for a frame to start with.
Beware the Landfill bike!
One of the quickest ways to rule out a frame is by brand. There are a handful of bike manufacturers that just rarely make anything worth messing with. Most of these are the big-box store brands and are sold by companies that do not care at all about cycling. Their bikes are just a "white good" to be sold to uninformed consumers with little to no craftsmanship or attention to detail. While it is possible to find a decent one you can build into something nice, I tend to just avoid them all together. The components are so cheap and poorly assembled that they are often not even worth parting out. These bikes really should not even exist, it is a waste of resources to produce something with so little care and effort.
The problem is they are getting harder to spot by just brand. Take Schwinn for example heir bikes from the 80's and early 90's are a common go-to of mine. There are hundreds of them out there for free and the road bikes are usually a decent brazed-lug frame. However they were eventually consumed by a conglomerate and now have very few bikes I see worth working on. Schwinn is one of many iconic American brands bought up and ruined for profit - What a shame!
Avoid 1-Peice Bottom Brackets
The easiest tell-tale sign that a bike is a landfill bike to be avoided is the 1-peice bottom bracket. The crank arms on these are a single forging, usually with the chain rings either welded or press fit on them and not serviceable. They are extremely heavy and easily spotted by the bend in the crank arm as it comes out of the bearing cage (see red arrows in pic below). The frame has a rather large diameter opening to accommodate pressed in bearing cups. They have to be large diameter to "snake" the crank through the frame and screw everything together tightly. These are present on some older bikes worth saving as this used to be pretty common on mid level bikes, but the only reason to save them is as antiques. This type of bracket is terrible. They flex a lot, they creak, the bearings are usually not sealed off very well so the grease gets washed out and dirty. The only reason they still exist is they are extremely cheap to produce, which is why they are always on landfill bikes. Unlike other cheaper bottom brackets that have threaded bracket shells, these are not really upgrade-able to anything decent. There are adapters out there, and they do offer improvement, but they are expensive and heavy and still creak and groan for not much gain. There is more info on Bottom Brackets here - Bottom Bracket Info
Look for Lugs
Lugs are basically assembly joints that the tubes that make up a bike are brazed into. If you look where the joints are you will see they are raised over the tubes. Lugged frames are almost always worth saving in my opinion. If you see a frame assembled with Lugs chances are it was handmade in 70's or 80's. These frames are often overlooked by modern riders as relics of the past, but the truth is they are great frames to build up for cheap. You won't be the fastest on race day anymore but that doesn't mean these are not great to ride. Steel is very compliant and I have never heard of a lug cracking or breaking like a poor weld. I have lost count how many of these frames I actually have- they are my favorite.
Check the welds
A high quality aluminum or steel frame that is welded will have smooth, consistent welds with good penetration into the tubes. Welding frames is much faster and more cost effective than hand brazing lugs. Most modern bikes made from metal are welded. The problem is welding is much harder to get correct because more variables like heat, shielding gas flow, weld speed, site preparation etc all have to be done correctly for a good weld. Brazing lugs is much more forgiving. However there are many companies and builders out there that make fantastic welded frames, many of them hand welded with a TIG torch. This pic is from my Trek Domane and as you can see Trek has no problem making great welds.
Some telltale signs that the frame you are looking at is not a good welded frame are : pitting and spatter not cleaned off, poor penetration and the weld just looking lumpy and uneven. Most bikes with these characteristics are wire-feed welded for speed - you can see some examples of what I would avoid below
Look at the components
The components used for a bike build up can give a good indication of what the market was intended to be for a bike when it was new. Was it intended to be sold in bikes shops ? Online? Big Box stores? Was it marketed as basic transportation? as a speed racer or?
The answer to these questions dictate what components a bike is fitted with. If a bike is marketed as cheap transportation it may have heavy crude components that are durable, if it is marketed as a speed machine for the serious cyclist of the time it will probably have some top shelf kit worth saving or - If it's intended sale is from a box store for as little money as possible, everything will probably need to be replaced if you are saving the frame ( I only recommend this for children's bikes)
The worst offenders to look out for are plastic brakes, stamped steel derailleurs with a recognizable brand sticker on them, twist shifters, and stamped steel cranksets. You may also come across the dreaded cheap disc brake in the front combined with a cantilever in the rear - run away if you see these. There are better bikes out there worth restoring for free, just keep looking.
Also remember just because components are old that does not mean they need replacing. I would take a quality set of Suntour drop levers from the 70's over just about anything available on a box store bike today. A lot of the older Aluminum components of the past were very well made and last for a very long time- you would be surprised what a good set of new cables can do for an older bike. When inspecting components look for the initial quality of manufacture - that will tell you if you found something special.
One last thing to check....
There is one last thing that I recommend you check if you find something really nice. To explain it I need to tell a quick story -
About 4 years ago I came across an ad in the free section of Craigslist that just said "free bike outside my barn, come and get it" Looking at the pics I assumed it was an early 80's Schwinn or something similar and went to pick it up. On first look it was clear I was wrong. It was older than that, looked unbranded and had top-shelf kit on it for a mid-70's bike. The frame was fillet-brazed and a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Everything on this bike that could be aluminum was, and it had even been lightened further with holes. It still had the toe-clip pedals too - this was clearly a very high end bike for it's day-- but what was it?
After much internet searching I figured out this was a Viscount. Viscount was a bike built in England in the 1970's with aerospace tech at the time. They even had an aluminum front fork ( which usually broke which explains why mine is steel) They were a sister company to Lambert until they were bought by Yamaha in 1978. While not a particularly expensive bike, they are very rare here in the USA. This is one of my better finds and I treasure it.
So why bring this up? If I had not done the research to find out what this bike was I likely would have parted it out and used the frame for something else, possibly even torching it for modifications or who knows what and this fantastic piece of history would have been gone forever. The lesson is to know what you have before you begin modifying it beyond what is reversible. Now that I know what it is I will restore this bike to it's former glory at some point and preserve it. If I had found out after I brazed a disc brake tab to it or something like that, I would be pretty bummed.