Custom Orlowski Workhorse

No it's a non issue (unless baths and electric current are involved) as far as bikes are concerned. SO long as appropriate welding/brazing rods are used there's no issues with mixing stainless and non-stainless.

Cool what's the build? Far and away the biggest component in determining the stiffness of a tube is the size and shape, I'd be very surprised if you could tell the difference between any OS tube sets of equal diameter. It's a while since I've looked through the Reynolds catalogue but if I remember correctly 853 only goes up to a 35mm DT so you may want to look at Columbus offerings. There's other reasons to choose a tube though and 853 is an absolute world away from anything Columbus make in terms of toughness. It may or may not make a difference on the bike but it's a lot more robust.

It was a joy, I did the same but with a bit of threaded rod. When I was servicing it I thought I couldn't even estimate how may miles that things done but I reckon it has to be in the region of 100k miles, granted I should have serviced it a long time ago. Still that's all on the same set of bearings and one of them was still smooth!

I made good progress on the repair today.

First cutting the bike in half then getting rid of the remainder of the old tubes, using angle grinder, dremel, power file, carbide burr and finally emery cloth

I found it super interesting to look under the hood and deconstruct another builders work and feel like I took a lot away from doing it, which was a big motivating factor in doing the repair rather than just building a new frame from scratch.

For the re-build I decided on the Max DT and a Zona 31.4>28.4 taper TT as I wanted it to be stiffer than it was before

That's the HT cut to length!

Build-master drawing

Next mitring

Then into the jig for fit up

Hand-cutting the compound mitre around an already welded and ground ST was a bit of a pain but I do enjoyed the little challenges and change from routine these personal projects offer

Done, ready quick session of cleaning and tacking tomorrow then I'll weld it up on lunch break on Monday

Apologies to those reading for going into the minutiae of the process but for me it's nice to have a record of these aspects and hopefully will be interesting to some

man you done is so well looking forward on the next step

Such a joy to follow.
What fork will you use?

The minutes of process is why I’m following this. Great thread

I made a new steel disc fork just before I left for Cuba

Ahh of course. I even tried to read back in the thread, but I didn’t connect the dots.
Will look superb

This whole thread is awesome forum gold. Ignoramus question: can welding into a previous weld's HAZ cause any problems?

You don’t hang about. This is great

This is awesome!

Great thread, super interesting stuff!

There's other reasons to choose a tube though and 853 is an absolute world away from anything Columbus make in terms of toughness

I'm curious how so, and in which way - 853 being tougher (dent-resistant?) in general or vice-versa?

Awesome !

lol @ 558.8mm top tube.

Cheers for the encouragement guys, I tacked it today between working on a batch of forks and should have it welded up tomorrow. I built up the wheels last night too, got a few more bits to order and some finishing touches on the frame to figure out but it's moving along nicely.

@Thrustvector In general no and so long as Jacek hasn't used a strange weld rod it'll be fine. I'll know as soon as I zap it and worst case scenario I can just braze it

@Tychom yeah due to the heat treatment 853 is a lot harder, you can rip through Columbus tubes all day with the same cutter whereas getting through one 853 tube will do a lot of damage. Whether that makes any difference to ride quality, I'm not sure but being more dent resistant and tougher I'd expect an 853 frame to have more longevity.

@Sumo 558.8? what's the joke?

I just like how exact it is as a top tube length.

I love this thread!

Is it now a Shandowski?

Skandowski? (Skant/Shand/Orlowski)

Mike Wazowski?

Shatowski?

Emily Ratajkowski tho 🤤