Is my steel frame trashed?

So frame arrived late last week and was in a pretty sorry state for itself considering i'd sent what I thought was a good condition frame off for a respray.

The top tube in particular is covering in small holes and on the rest of the rest of the frame mainly around the welds there are small pin holes coming through .

I picked up a cheap endoscopy camera (much to my partners horror) and was pretty shocked with how rusty the top tube and down tube looked considering the seat tube, bb area and head tube area were fairly clean.

In contrast i've never looked inside steel tubing so uncertain whether this is standard wear and tear for a bike of this age / usage.

Assuming in light of the inside of the inside of tubes this was not caused by the spray shop. I've not managed to get any form of the reply from the frame maker which is disappointing, however assume they'll be no way of me getting it repaired under there "warranty" as I can't prove the frames usage, storage condition etc.

If anyone else has any other advice, thoughts etc would be great to hear it.

I've owned quite a few junk steel bikes over the years that have been treated far worse than this and never had any issues so this has been pretty disheartening considering the time, cash that went into the bike.

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Those tubes look pretty clean inside in my opinion

Cheers for taking a look @PhilDAS would you say there's a chance those holes were not caused by rust coming through? If not is the only other option been over blasted?

Look I'm not an expert, I work with a framebuilder but I'm not one myself so I don't have any credibility behind my opinion but there's very little rust colouring in there. If it was rusty enough to eat through the tubes, I think it would be a lot more obvious inside.

Disclaimer: no formal training in the topic, just curiosity got the better of me:

Using this corrosion rate calculator, and these parameters:

-In one image, I count 15 pinholes on a roughly 20x3cm area (accounting for it being a curved surface, so ~6000mm2, but thats a guesstimate)
-Each pinhole is ~0.5mm2 (at least?)
-Colombus Zona is 25CRMO4, and has a density of 0.00775 g/mm3
-Middle of top tube is 0.5mm thick, for sake of simplicity Im ignoring curvature and calculate each pinhole as 0.25mm3 material removed. Times 15, times density: 29.06mg metal weight loss
-Frame is 6 years old, we'll assume proper storage of materials before build

Corrosion rate comes to 104.1 micros/year, which is categorized as very high, with this definition: Coastal and offshore areas with high salinity. Buildings or areas with almost permanent condensation and high pollution. Does this describe your home? :)

All this is armchair engineering though, tester will come in a minute and put me in my place. But anyways, tubes look very clean from the inside.

Edit: frame is 7 years old, my bad. Wont recalculate, but you get the point.

If I was a betting man.. oh wait, I am a betting man... I would put my money on the damage being done by sanding/blasting. It doesn't look anywhere near enough rust for that to be a factor.

Do the rusty areas on the inside correspond to the pinholes on the outside? Which part are we looking at in the second picture?

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The tubes are thin, frame is dented inwards, the inside looks pretty clean aside from the join, which looks oxidised from probably not being purged when welded. It doesn’t look like rust is the issue to me. It looks like it’s been too aggressively blasted based on those photos.

I’d consider the insides of those tubes to look somewhere between ‘clean’ and ‘very clean’.

If I knew a secondhand frame I was thinking of buying had that level of rust inside I wouldn’t hesitate in buying it.

Looking at those photos, look fine to me. As for my credentials I've not looked inside bike frames, but have looked inside car box sections and that. Looks fine by me.

Ive recently had a frame stripped, i was given it free but the thing was covered in blemishes, small dings etc Columbus tubing, mixture of Max and a couple other tubes fillet brazed. Anyhow previous owner had ridden it in all weather, turbo sweating all over it etc and after 25 years of abuse it was looking rough with some orange pitting visible in places. on advice from a frame builder it was vapor blasted to see if it was worth saving and if any holes appeared.. there were a few pits and a braze on cablestop that was extremely thin as expected . In terms of a comparison with yours...Your tube looks so heavily cleaned up that its not even cylindrical anymore, as if someone persevered to get rid of a pit by sanding at it until a far larger area has cratered because it has become thin. Its very odd which makes me think theres a combination of things going on. The frame wasnt treated or cleaned properly post build and contaminants gave the corrosion a head start. Might have already been thinner than spec with a blasting process pre paint? or that the current paintshop did something too aggressive. - i'm inclined to believe this one. It should have just been acid etched after a lighter blast, dipped or what have you, a little bit of silver/brass filling to any dings and have been perfect.

@Benzo really sorry you’ve gone through this with your steel frame. FWIW - and I’m no expert - I don’t think those endoscope photos show anything like enough rust to cause breakthrough to the outer side of the tubes.

I’m really keen to know who all the involved parties are (that dropout looks familiar, but not the brake bridge so that’s a genuine point of interest, but I think I’m keen to avoid the paint shop!)

I hope you don’t mind me asking the rest of the thread contributers, while we’re at it: is it easy to add frame saver to a frame? Mine was built in 2019 so is due, and I’m happy to do it myself as long it doesn’t involve corrosives that are difficult to dispose of!

It's simple but you'll need to take the bike back to the bare frame. Spray a load through the internal breather holes into each tube, turn and twist the frame to make sure every surface inside is coated, leave to dry on its side, maybe turning it occasionally.
It's nothing too nasty

Thanks mate - appreciated.

The bike is due a strip down this winter as well, have a look at the BB and consider recabling.

Any particular brand you recommend?

or those pinholes were in the steel already, and the builder had filled them in

Ah, didn't think of that. My blame is now aimed 70/30 at the stripper.

Why is it always the stripper's fault? /politician

Cheers all, has been really good to get the mixed opinions of the forum. Have gone back to the spray shop with a list of evidence why they could be at fault so will see what they come back with.

@Ben6899 avoiding mentioning the frame maker and spray shop by name in an open forum as don't think it would be fair on them if I pointed the finger unnecessary.

I've reviewed the frame again to take better images to send back to the sprayshop and one point I did notice is around the welds on the dropouts, chain stay bridge and bottom bracket there are tiny holes around the welds could this also be the product of over blasting as well?

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Is it brazed not welded?

Image 1 - You're talking about the 'pitting' above the cable port? That looks like its on the tube surface so I'd guess either from corrosion or over blasting.

Images 2 and 3 look like imperfections in the joints which will have been there since construction. I get these sometimes. I don't think they are the end of the world on an otherwise solid frame. I'd probably go round and fill them in with a little silver but the builder has perhaps hidden them with filler during the original paintjob.

It’s maybe picking hairs and would be good to get others opinions but is that pretty sloppy fit up of the stay to the dropout?

It looks like a lot of silver/brass (marked in blue) where I’d expect the dropout to be more snugged up to the stay?

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Hey @M_V thanks for taking a look. In image 1 I was referring to the small hole in the brazed area either side of the bridge.

These? Again they look like the sort of little imperfections I get in my fillets from time to time. Avoiding them is a bit of a black art I think.

Have you had any response from the builder? Would be interesting to find out if they had maybe filed these holes in with silver as that could point to an overly aggressive blast.

The dropouts may be done with only silver though which’ll would sort of counter that but then again, if I had to fill a gap like that between stay and dropout I’d definitely be using brass for that not silver.

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Great thanks @M_V I funnily enough did get a message via social media from the builder saying he'd seen my e-mails however was on holiday so was going to take a look over the next few days and get back to me. Be interesting to see their response vs the spray shops.

Hi All,

Response from the Spray Shot attached. They have offered to replace the damaged tubes and respray for a reduced fee however as it involves replacing pretty much every tube on the frame even with the discount it doesn't work out cost effective.

Any opinions on impurities / issues with Columbus tubing?

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