Please teach me STEEL
 

I am beginning to catch the C&V fever. I am in the early stages at this point. I am just beginning to gather a knowledge base. Are there any books or web sites beside that you can recommend. Or help you can give me. Particularly about the different steel tubing types. And how they differ. ie CroMO, Champion 1 & 2 etc.

Also need to consider many steel bikes use a variety of grades throughout the frame. So read the label carefully: is it limited to main tubes, what about stays and forks? And if it is not labeled, assume it is high ten steel (bottom end).

Columbia SL and Reynolds 531 are the two biggies. 531 is a manganese alloy, SL a chromoly. 531 has been replaced by air hardening steels that can be TIG welded. SL has been replaced by Nivachrom (niobium alloys) and Columbus' newest, xCr stainless. LINK1, LINK2, LINK3, LINK4, LINK5

True Temper makes some good steel alloys; notably Oxplat and S3. Tange has some good chromoly tubing; lower the number, the better the tube. Dedaccai(sp?), Gilco, Excel, Vitus, Ishiwata and a few other small names shouldn't be dismissed.

LINK6

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LINK10

Every once in a while, a frame with the wrong tubing decals is spotted on eBay. Sometimes it is noted by the seller, sometimes not. Be careful of possible counterfeits. When in doubt, ask around or just stay away.

And sometimes, a frame is up for sale missing the decals and the seller notes that or doesn't; meaning he doesn't know what he's got. Or it's missing the decals but the seller claims it is something which it is not. Have to be careful.

a nicely biased set of short articles from the torelli website- emphasis on Columbus steel tubing & Torelli/Mondonico framesets

http://www.torelli.com/tech/material.shtml

http://www.torelli.com/tech/matdesn.html

http://www.torelli.com/tech/747.html

If you just want a bike which rides well, a mixed tubeset frame with a high quality double-butted moly steel main triangle can be a great bargain. You will suffer only a very small weight penalty for a frame which otherwise performs every bit as well as one of its much pricier and more collectible thoroughbred stablemates. If you can't afford a PX-10, consider a PR-10 or PKN-10. Instead of a top-of-the-line Bianchi, consider a Campione d'Italia.

I love the stuff on this site.
patentpending.blogs.com


Like this

"Steel Tubing for bicycle frames
Bicycle construction was made considerably lighter and stronger when in 1885 the German brothers Max and Reinhard Mannesmann patented a process for making seamless steel tubing. A solid cylindrical blank is fed into contact with forming rollers which grip and pull the blank over a mandrel which bores out the inside of the blank. The diameter of the tubing becomes larger than diameter of the original blank. This 1888 patent is for a version of their process in which the work of forcing the blank over the mandrel is accomplished by a feed device, so the rollers have to form the outer shape but do not grip and pull the blank. The brothers founded the Mannesmann company, which grew into a huge industrial giant which is dominant in its field today, and valued at around $92 billion."
Original text from:
http://patentpending.blogs.com/paten...tubing_bi.html
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...etubemaker.jpg

here is WHY STEEL
here is COLUMBUS TUBING PDF'S
Cheers
T

Soderbiker: Thanks for the good link on lugged steel frames. Now I have another reason to like them lugged!

This is what I like about BF everyones always ready to teach. Thanks guys!