Frames not machined post-welding

Nick Payne

I've had two Kinesis frames pass through my hands for building up lately - an aluminium 4S Disc and a titanium Tripster ATR V2, both with tapered head tubes and English thread 68mm BB shells. On both frames the BB shell and machined tapered head tube had obviously not been chased and faced after welding, as they were both out of square. I was able to chase and face the BB shells, but lacking the cutters for the IS42 and IS52 bearing seats (and I don't know of a single bike shop anywhere close to me that has them), I had to leave them as was.

By contrast, the couple of Lynskey frames that I've worked on recently have not needed anything done at all on either the BB shell or head tube to align them, so Lynskey obviously do put the taps and cutters through their frames after welding to ensure that everything is square.

ugo.santalucia

Aren't Lynskey significantly more expensive too?

Nick Payne

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Aren't Lynskey significantly more expensive too?

Kinesis aluminium frames are cheaper, but if you compare the prices of the Kinesis and Lynskey titanium frames, the Lynskey frames are in the main cheaper.

imposter2.0

Not sure what point you are trying to make.

Nick Payne

My point is that an expensive frame - at £1500 without fork the ATR qualifies as that - shouldn't require remedial work before you can start installing components. A further problem I discovered with the ATR frame after my initial post was that the seat tube hadn't been reamed after welding either - it nominally takes a 31.6mm seatpost, but a 31.6 seatpost wouldn't fit until I reamed the seat tube to correct the distortion from welding.

gethinceri

Perhaps it would be more expensive if these jobs had been done.

keef66

That is pretty rubbish TBH. I'd at least expect the seat tube to be the right size and the BB shell square. Not the kind of things I could afford to equip myself to do at home...

crankycrank

Never understood why some frame builders don't face and chase their frames before delivering to the customer. Yes it's more expensive but most people buying frames don't have all the proper tools to do this and will have to pay someone to do it properly anyways. Doing it at the factory would certainly end up costing less in the end. Not to mention it's one less thing to blame the frame maker on if the customer buggers it up and ends up with a bike that has threading, seatpost and sloppy bearing fit issues. The last frame I bought (not naming them) came delivered unfaced and the seat tube had a huge glob of brazing material inside which required quite a bit of time to carefully grind it down before even thinking about using a proper reamer. Also had a hanging shard of steel on the inside of the fork tube from a shoddy brake hole drilling which gave me a big gash on my finger from blindly feeling around it. Still have the scar on my finger which will remind me not to buy from this place again. I think in the future I'll let any framemaker know that not doing this may lose them a sale.

The Rookie

In this day and age when external bearings (with a threaded shell) are the norm rather than the exception for only moderately decent bike (like anything anyone would build from a frame/frameset) I totally agree, they should all be chased and faced. Apart from anything else it means that you don't then damage the paint in the BB shell area before even building the bke.