Can aluminium be heat treated twice?

Salsa maybe. Never liked Cannondale. I know they're great bikes. Just a brand I have an irrational dislike of.

Yeah it's the Ford Focus of bikes to be sure...

I'm patiently waiting on my not-custom built but custom re-painted heavily discounted Mercian Pro Lugless audax frame arriving as a post masters celebratory self-confidence exercise, hopefully my health will be good enough to do it justice this year : /

Hope you get a good resolution to this anyway-life is too short to ride shite bikes!

life is too short to ride shite bikes!

You listening?
@dr_frankenbike @pdlouche

life is too short to ride shite bikes!

Wash your dirty mouth out!

"life is too short to ride shite bikes!"

Ha, I think you've just created my life motto. Certainly T shirt material.

Hope your health issues are behind you.

You're forgetting the Schadenfreude adjustment - you guys despairing over my shitty bikes brings great joy

Recently found more joy riding the shitty scrapyard bmx than any road bike before. Zero road rage, zero close passes, lots of doggos to stop and pet, and so on. Best is locking it up no idiot would even think to nick it. Still knackered every night too, probably more knackered.

r.e. this thread - I know the conversation has moved on but weren't CAADs heat-treated twice? You're the expert

If so maybe worth keeping the old one, sending it off to Orlowski (? that Eastern European builder who uses aluminium) or someone to have the guides added back on and sell it on or use it as a spare bike or whatever

Yeah but think how much better it would be riding a sick expensive BMX

CAADs heat-treated twice

Are you confusing double pass welding with double heat treating?

VNYL but there hard to get a hold of if I remember right.

Rychtarski do custom Aluminum.

@PhilDAS yes probably

@LeePaton I think Mielec was the one I was thinking of. But yeah, if it's possible to modify and re-heat treat and there's a builder out there willing to do it that's a very cheap second frame.

Sshhhh...!

Oh also I might give up and move on that Onza T-Pro, doesn’t fit me right and starting to look way more money than I want to spend to get it built.

All that money certainly could go toward a sick whip with 20” wheels.

I'm still not convinced that welding on a cable guide would necessarily require a second heat treatment.

It depends on what aluminium the frame is made of. Each type has its own alloys and heat treatment, or temper. In my previous life as an aircraft mechanic I did lots of stuff with aluminium and somewhere in my study books I have lists of the types of alu and the treatment processes. I’m buggered if I can recall it all now, but for example the most common alu alloy is 6061 T6 It’s a 6000 series aluminium alloy, with alloys like copper, magnesium and zinc. T6 is the heat treatment. I can’t recall offhand the details of the treatment involved but it’s basically heating and then cooling at a specific rate. Ageing then completes the treatment. You can repeat the process after more welding or repairs. The point with 6061 is that is that you can re-weld it, but the whole piece needs to be heat treated again to regain full strength - a structure can lose about 45% of its strength when its heated, so it must be re-treated to T6 spec.

There are other grades of aluminium alloy which need other T heat treatments, but some of them can’t be repaired by welding again. I must dig my books out again and have a read.

Steel alloys are also heat treated, too. I remember that dear old Reynolds 531 and the later 753 were both identical in composition (manganese-molybdenum steel) but given a different temper. 753 was given a harder temper and so the tubing could be made a lot thinner than 531 and so it was lighter. It was a bastard to braze, though.

fwiw i'd take the temp frame and wait for the new one to be built.

Excellent info. That all makes sense and does tally with other things I've read.

It's all a bit arbitrary now in terms of my original reason for asking the question as I've just told Spooky to arrange to collect their frameset and provide me with a full refund without delay.

In the end I've weighed it all up and head has won out over heart. I am gutted to be so close to getting the frameset I wanted, but in the end the fact that my frame has got through all the various stages of their full process without anyone noticing this fundamental flaw leaves me thinking that they're a company under pressure (not sure whether this is time/finances/lack of man power) and therefore it's too risky to accept the goodwill gesture of using the temporary "sticking plaster" frame until the proper one is fabricated. There's too much risk that I'll become low priority and/or they go bust in the meantime.

I've already lost 4 months, had a load of hassle and will lose out on PayPal fees and exchange rates etc when the refund is issued (plus I've got to argue with the tax man about getting my import duties back) but will prefer to cut my loses and buy an OTP frame in the UK that I can just build and ride without further fuss.

Let's see how quickly they honour the offer of the refund. I don't see why I should wait for them to collect the frame. The least they can do is give me my money back without delay. If they'd have done their job right I'd be happily building my new bike by now...

I've read the whole thing, and my opinion counts for nothing, but I'd cut my losses and move on. You wanted the frame of your dreams, it hasn't happened. It'll always leave a bit of an after taste.
I don't want to shit on Spooky, and do wish them the best of luck, but it's a great time for custom bikes at the moment, and there's a lot of small scale manufacturers doing amazing work. You're not really short of selecting someone else to fulfill your needs.

I'm particularly excited by @TvH new ride for example, and it's a showcase of what small builders can accomplish.

Do what you said, and just wait till next year to see what comes up then.
Best of luck.

Yeah, @TvH 's MTB is a peach.

Have been having a mooch about on line for possible replacements this evening. Mason Bokeh is the closest thing I've found to an OTP that does close to what I was looking for from the Spooky. The Mason "In Search Of" is an interesting option too. Wouldn't be as "performance" orientated as my initial brief, but would take the wheels from my MTB and I reckon be a lot of laughs. Bit of an ugly duckling, but it's all about the ride right... Weird geo too. Much easier for me to work out what size I'd need in the Bokeh.

I enjoyed owning a Bokeh, but I didn't own it for long as my riding requirements changed. It's a bit....agricultural, but they're brilliant bikes. If I had to do again, I'd look into a Fairlight Secan.

The ISO serves it's purpose well I reckon, a lot like the Salsa Cuttroat, and they will get even more popular. I do dig how they've considered running 650's as well compared to Salsa.

Just found this thread. Really unfortunate situation; the frame looked great. What were the other issues with it, that you mentioned on page 1?

Wouldn’t wanna be the next guy in the queue, who receives your frame and no idea it’s a reworked seconds!

Thanks for the useful feedback @Chak I did look at the Cutthroat too, will give it a closer inspection. The Secan is probably perfect, but their obscure pricing, long lead times and an interview I saw with the owner claiming to be some kind of bike design messiah put me off the brand.

@Hazzles when I first posted the OP I didn't really intend this to become a name and shame of spooky, I was just after info about the re-heat treating question. Everyone makes mistakes (me included) and in the end they have owned up to theirs and tried to do the right thing (or at least everything possible that was available to them) to put it right. So I won't air further dirty laundry on here. But I'll PM you.

To hijack this thread with my own boutique bicycle woes... How many times can 853 be sand blasted? 😭

Guess it’ll depend on the actual type of blasting, the media used and stuff.

The powder coated I use must use a very abrasive blasting media as it leaves a pretty pitted finish on metal so I probably wouldn’t trust them with anything nice like 853.