Process

Design and fit

To work out sizing, we take key measurements of your body (and any current bikes) via an online form, or from a professional fitting you may have had, then make our recommendations. For customers with fit requirements we customise our frame designs as you require. You can also visit us for a personal fitting.

Our frame designs typically utilise a mixture of Reynolds, Columbus and Dedacciai tubesets selected specifically for the ride characteristics of a specific frame. Tubes vary in specification between frame sizes to maintain the ride characteristics across different sized riders.

Components and accessories have been chosen from our extensive experience of what works well for our designs and provides the best value against quality. Again, as everything is bespoke and built to order, other components and accessories can be specified to create your perfect build – along with custom paint schemes and graphics.

Mitering and tube prep

As we TIG weld the majority of our frames, accurate measurement and mitering of tubes is vital to achieving perfectly aligned frames with minimal distortion during the welding process.

After measurement and cutting on dedicated jigs and fixtures, tubes are then precisely mitred and/or drilled for dropouts and bosses as required. Any burs left over from mitering, cutting, drilling etc, are removed as well as any mill scale left over from manufacturing of the tube.

Fabrication

Once a tubeset has been mitered it is placed in a customer bundle ready for welding. To ensure everything is correct, the tubeset is then fitted up in the frame jig to check for inaccuracies that might lead to distortion during welding.

The tubeset is then removed and cleaned thoroughly to eliminate any possibility of contamination during welding. The tubes are then placed back in the jig and tacked to securely hold the whole structure together. With the frame taking shape, it’s removed from the jig and checked for alignment before being moved to a specific stand for welding. The main joints are then TIG welded.

TIG welding is a fast, high temperature, welding process using an electric arc to melt the parent metals while adding a filler rod to complete the joint. It produces a neat stack of weld ‘beads’ round the tube junctions. Fillet brazing uses an oxy/fuel torch and brass filler material that requires filing afterwards to create an aesthetically smooth joint.

We like TIG for many reasons. It’s a more predictable, accurate and consistent process for joining tubes than brazed or lugged construction. Although we focus on high-end heat-treated steels for our production bikes, TIG welding can also be used on stainless steels as well as titanium.

Alignment and finishing

After welding, the frame is checked again for alignment. Braze-ons for bottle bosses and cable guides are then added along with the addition of a stainless steel frame number.

Any brazed joints such as dropouts, bridges and fork disk mounts are filed and shaped to achieve a perfect finish prior to paint. Reaming and facing of head tube and bottom bracket shell is also carried out at this stage.

Paint

We take pride in facilitating the whole fabrication process with our partners and this also extends to paint. Our paint process starts with mechanically cleaning bare frames with aluminium oxide blast media, effectively removing any contaminants and provide a ‘key’ for etch primer to prevent oxidisation and provide a suitable base coat.

Primer is then applied and flattened down prior to a colour base coat. Then the first two coats of lacquer before Graphics are applied at this stage (in paint using careful masking – there are no stickers anywhere on a Shand) and then coated with the final two coats of clear (gloss or matte) lacquer.

After curing, the frame is then ‘de-nibbed’ to remove any minor imperfections in the lacquer, then polished and sealed with carnuaba wax as a way of providing external protection from the elements. Internally your frame is coated with a wax-based solution to prevent oxidisation. All threads and faces are then tapped and faced prior to component assembly.