Okay, I'm thinking of starting my very first bike project and it seems that there are a lot of experienced bike builders here. Now it's not really a LRB, it's gonna be a BMX...What would be best? find a frame and build it up or buy a partially completed old one from a friend?? Bearing in mind i do want to learn something from this so... any help appreciated. I'd personally like to go find myself a frame and go from there but if it's easier to buy one from a from a friend that's half done and just needs atouch-up then i might go for that.  

assembling a bike isnt hard. i have only built like 6 bikes in my life but i can assemble one in just a few hours. its more fun to start with the frame and track down all the parts you want  

that's what i thought, so that's what i'm goin to go ahead and do, i will outline how i'm going to do it on my site, will post a link up and tell me what you think.  

Oooohhh, now this I can help you with. I am a former BMX rider, and I was a bike mechanic for like 6 years. I built my bike from scratch, and it was the lightest, strongest around. First of all, how tall are you, this will help determine the top tube length you want, and it will also weed out some manufacturers.  

well, as i said being 14 doesnt help much and im about 5ft 5" or between that and 5ft 7"....But i'm just gonna go easy, not going to go all out and build a custom bike from scratch..as i said i dont think icould pull in enough favours AND i live in the uk...that doesnt help one little bit. I have finished my little 'plan' of what im goin to do, and i have included some visual aids. when i find a good pic i will try to show a re creation of what i want to do as a photoshopped artwork. I'm looking to start this around end july/beginning august so i've got a fair wait...but i also have a lot of major public exams approaching as well. erm..yeh well check out the plan and any help will be much appreciated, though as you can see, this project is going to be spread over a long period of time even though, if i get all the parts all at once, i could probably finish in a night or two. Still..read the 'plan' and comments are welcome

here's the link to the plan -->  link to the plan (surprisingly)  

those look like some major mods you plan on doing. why bend the forks?  

I realy dont wanna burst your bubble, but cutting the frame will severely sacrifice the strength of the welds so you'll pretty much have to rework the welds on every joint of the frame. plus bending the forks is kind of counterproductive homie, just get smaller forks if you want to level her out. Let me ask you this... Are you trying to make a bmx bike that rides low, or are you just going for a custom look? The specs I think would work well for ya are:
Premium Products Frame- 20.5" top tube length
Primo Moustache handlebars- easy to bend and cut

Since you're modifying the frame , you'll want to go with a REALLY small drive sprocket- maybe 18 tooth, with really short crank arms (can't think of lengths right now) but with the small sprocket, you'll also need a small freewheel.Make sure your tooth sizes for the sprocket and freewheel match up, you don't wanna have a sprocket for a fatty chain trying to work with a regular freewheel or vice versa. I'll try to gather some websites for ya.

Thats all I can think of at this second, but more will come to me later lol  

thanks man, that really helped, a lot. it Being my first time doin this your help is really appreciated. i'll go with what you said and will ask around as well. I suppose i'm going for a custom look but i still want a cruiser element...could that be achevied?? thanks anyways...will ponder what you've said!!    

i built a lowrider out of this bmx frame i had like 15 years ago, the frame was about as short as you want yours to be. if you look around you will probably find one that doesnt need to be modified to look the way you want  

ok, so i have to look for a frame roughly the size and length i want it to be, then just go for my cutsom look?? just to let you know i'm thinking of black with a lot of chrome parts... (i like chrome).. (not real chrome...)  

I found a frame that's perfect!!!   i'm very happy now, lol. Anyways, i'm gonna be getting some nice parts for it, but am reconsidering that black and chrome look. and if i need any help with it i'll just post up on here. thanks for all the help guys!!!