(sorry) steel frame care

Jamie O

ok then, here's the deal...

i'm almost definatly going to buy a ragley blue pig frame, but i have no experiance with steel frames.

soooooo, do i have to worry about any potential buildups of iron oxide? if so, what can i do to prevent rust eating away at my steed?

any help would be greatly appreciated

jamie

The Northern Monkey

Do nothing.

There is some stuff you can buy to spray down your tubes but its not really needed.

Jamie O

coolio! sounds good to me!

nicklouse

my 1984 steel bike is still in one piece and working fine.

never had any special treatment.

dave_hill

Jamie O wrote:

Do i have to worry about any potential buildups of iron oxide?

Only if you plan on using it at sea.

ride_whenever

I would helitape the frame though, chips when rusty look rubbish.

Frames tend to be pretty well sealed, leave the post out when you're not using it, and try to store it somewhere warm.

mmacavity

J R Weigles Frame Saver says

"Cool moist conditions can pull in damp air past the seatpost, threads and vent holes"
http://www.ceeway.com/Framesaver.htm

A bike used outside in the cold and brought into a warm (&damp) atmosphere could theoretically form condensation in the tubes, but not really worth worrying about.

A spray of paint (primer, zinc primer or acid etch) into a new clean frame will be enough. The inside of a lot of steel frames are bare, no coating of anything, therefore the fear of rust inside the tubes.
Alternatively spray oil into the tubes.

mmacavity

http://www.rivbike.com/article/bicycle_ ... _materials

"Steel critics cite rust as a weak point of steel, and even the word rust conjurs up images of broken chains and hole-y buckets. But rust and corrosion ("rust" being steel-specific) are protective responses to environmental conditions, and once a layer has built up, they become a protective layer against further corrosion. Super thin tubes are more vulnerable to rust than are thicker ones, and that's a good argument for avoiding 0.35mm walls in steel bicycle frame tubes. But if rust were the tube-killer the carb-al-ti folks would have you believe, there wouldn't be hundreds of thousands of 30-year old and routinely neglected steel-framed bicycle still roaming the planet. Even so, it is best to prevent corrosion in super-thin-walled steel tubes by spraying them with any number of anti-rust sprays readily available. FrameSaver is one. Boeshield T9 is another. LPS makes some good anti-rust sprays. If you like the old ways, use linseed oil. The point is, rust is a problem only in your head."

ride_whenever

^^^ that is just patently untrue.

Rust does not form a protective barrier in the same way that aluminium oxide/ does because it is pretty soluble in water, and very hydroscopic, so it tend to keep rusting through. However rust tends to have about 1000 times the volume of the steel it came from, so you're talking about a LOT of rust before a frame is significantly weakened.