FAO SuperSonic.
foy
Posts: 296
I have just been drooling over some of the incredible craftmanship and beautiful works of art at the american handmade bike show. Just curious to know how much a stainless steel frame would cost and why are they not mass produced? Maybe supersonic can give us his great wisdom on this one.
0
Comments
-
Does that mean only super is allowed to answer then?
Do a search for Reynolds 953 steel frames if you want to know how much a stainless frame would cost. It's pretty pricey.0 -
The typical stainless steels we see are simply not strong enough - the tensile strength figures are so low that a frame would need to be massively overbuilt - and as steel is the heaviest of frame materials anyway, we would end up with incredibly heavy, yet expensive frames. 4130 cromo usually has a yield strength of 50% higher or more.
However there are a class of 'super' steels that are available: Reynolds 953 is one, and it has stainless properties:
http://reynoldstechnology.biz/our_materials_953.php
It is expensive to use though, and still will not build into a frame as light or cheap as carbon or aluminium for a certian stiffness. And quite possibly titanium.0 -
Boo-yah! Beat the big-man to the punch. My bestest moment of teh evars.
0 -
Faster than a speeding cromo bullet!0
-
don't be silly, everyone knows Ti is faster.0
-
Very suprised about how brittle stainless steel is, so are the bikes on display which are made of this material just for show then?0
-
I knew i would get the correct answer of the mr knowledge of all things about cycling lol. Cheers supersonic.0
-
It's a brief general answer: I am sure some materials expert can go into more detail if need be ;-)0
-
953 is a maraging stainless, it comes from a company called carpenter technology its just a vaccum melted alloy (done twice) its not actually a seamless tube though you actually have to xray the tube to find the join there are still alloys out there which do have a higher tensile strength and are cheaper
its a pain to work with it requires the same setup as welding a titanium frame (backpurging) for tig method
folks are brazing it but I'm not a brazer so cannot or shouldn't speak of it
in its pre aged form strongest supplied tube ,your looking at heavy cutting tools (effing hard shit) to cut and mitre
in its non aged form weaker but easier to cut and form you then need to age it to bring it back up to strength bear in mind for us builders this is only if you want to hit that magic UTS the material can achieve.The risk is at the welds ,however lots of metallurgy elongation etc which aint interesting
you cant just bead blast or scotchbrite the tube as after its been out in the rain the material picks up residues and then appears to rust its not the 953 thats rusting though, to eliminate this you can then passivate the frame so its devoid of any nasties it picked up during finishing
costs as much as titanium tubing and stains
yep you read that right stainless that stains making it pretty much a white elephant unless you have an obsession with either pickling or autosol your sweat will cause it to go brown if your a salty chap or use it in winter
AND MY POINT IS I'm not slating the material despite the above sounding negative but to do stainless right you still need to think about these little peculiarites
take into account custom build (or even production building) and time taken to work with THE MATERIAL you hopefully will have an insight into why stainless is as expensive to manufacture as Ti
Reynolds did just release 931 but I'm not sure if it still suffers the staining issue its new and I havent used it
My money persoanally is on KVA M2 im saying nothing more0 -
compositepro wrote:953 is a maraging stainless, it comes from a company called carpenter technology its just a vaccum melted alloy (done twice) its not actually a seamless tube though you actually have to xray the tube to find the join there are still alloys out there which do have a higher tensile strength and are cheaper
its a pain to work with it requires the same setup as welding a titanium frame (backpurging) for tig method
folks are brazing it but I'm not a brazer so cannot or shouldn't speak of it
in its pre aged form strongest supplied tube ,your looking at heavy cutting tools (effing hard shoot) to cut and mitre
in its non aged form weaker but easier to cut and form you then need to age it to bring it back up to strength bear in mind for us builders this is only if you want to hit that magic UTS the material can achieve.The risk is at the welds ,however lots of metallurgy elongation etc which aint interesting
you cant just bead blast or scotchbrite the tube as after its been out in the rain the material picks up residues and then appears to rust its not the 953 thats rusting though, to eliminate this you can then passivate the frame so its devoid of any nasties it picked up during finishing
costs as much as titanium tubing and stains
yep you read that right stainless that stains making it pretty much a white elephant unless you have an obsession with either pickling or autosol your sweat will cause it to go brown if your a salty chap or use it in winter
AND MY POINT IS I'm not slating the material despite the above sounding negative but to do stainless right you still need to think about these little peculiarites
take into account custom build (or even production building) and time taken to work with THE MATERIAL you hopefully will have an insight into why stainless is as expensive to manufacture as Ti
Reynolds did just release 931 but I'm not sure if it still suffers the staining issue its new and I havent used it
My money persoanally is on KVA M2 im saying nothing more[/quote
What he said..0
