I am a frame builder AMA

I am going for a Ti fork,

Indeed? I have a Direct Control titanium fork which one of these days I will use to rebuild my old Raleigh Torus XT mountain bike. Here's a picture from the brochure from Ye Olde Days showing the bike with the fork:

Looks beautiful, but utterly terrifying to ride. It's as flexy and twangy as a very flexy and twangy thing, despite the double crowns, and there's only a few occasions when the front wheel is actually pointing in the direction of travel. Looks cool though.

What make or who made the fork? I discussed this particular flexy issue everyone is talking about with Ted in great depth and he has explained to me how he can stablise the flexy issue. On the flip side, I have heard some folks saying their ti forks are stiffer than their steel because they are well made.

The original design was by Reg Trimnell from X-Lite, but these forks were made by Raleigh's Special Products Division. I'm sure that you can make a titanium fork which is stiff, either by increasing the diameter of the blades or by increasing the wall thickness. I'm not sure that the quality of manufacture is likely to have any effect on stiffness though.

I have accepted it is a gamble that I might end up having to buy a carbon fork down the line, but knowing Ted's history in terms of innovation and skills, it is a gamble that I am willing to take and one that I am confident will play off. Only time will tell.

He mentioned about increasing the wall thickness and I asked him wouldn't it be counter-productive as going for ti over steel is to save weight (and other reasons). He says on average ti is about 4 time lighter than steel and by increasing the wall thicker, the ti fork will be heaiver, but it will still be significantly lighter than steel.

*I have greatly simplified the 4 times lighter claim, Ted did give me some pretty complicated calculation that I didn't really understand fully, but it has a lot to do with what brand and grade of materials etc etc.

Please don't read this in a standoff ish way, as that's not how it's meant at all, but I would just go with what you and Ted decide. You've made (wise) decision to trust Ted to make you a bike, and without him being here there's not much point discussing ride quality and stiffness etc.. Nobody wants a ti fork designed by committee ;)

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Thanks will look for a local machine shop to sort it was just checking if there was anything off the peg.

Mike mcdermid did have them as you know, but he often ends up doing other more interesting work for proper industries rather than us, that and starting awesome barneys on social media.

Yep I've had various emails with him but hasn't come to fruition so will try get it sorted somewhere locally.

It wasn't me who started the discussion about build quality or stiffness as I had already made up my mind on that, I was only asking for different styles aka looks that people know of so I can be inspired. That's very different to asking for a committee to decide how my bike should look like.

No I realise that, I think what I meant was that the style of assembly is going to have an impact on those qualities. What has Ted said to you? Does he have a preference? I'd have thought uni crown would make sense, but your illusion to something special made me wonder whether he had one of his bonkers truss forks in mind...

#saynotounicrowns

Read that as #saynotounicorns

Double crowns + no travel = lul wut

It's amazing they never really caught on, isn't it? Flexible as hell, a bugger to work on, and not that light. I still think they look pretty cool though, especially from the front.

I replaced them with RockShox Judy XLs - the purple ones with the double crowns but hardly any travel. Their only redeeming feature was that they were cheap. Totally screwed up the handling too.

Did you get a chance to check this out?

It's amazing they never really caught on, isn't it? Flexible as hell, a bugger to work on, and not that light.

You forgot the bit where when you crash your fork destroys your frame :)

The lack of bumpers on the fork legs was a concern, I admit, but they would have ruined its looks. It wasn't ever actually an issue, which is surprising, because I tend to crash lots when I'm MTBing.

Yes, sorry for slow reply. I couldn't remember whether I was using the thoriated or ceriated ones (colour coding long gone), but it is the 2% thoriated, as the ceriated had a shit fit when doing BB area, drop outs etc...

Thanks for looking! Will let you know how I get on

This is the go to, clearing the workshop after first batch and found an old box.

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clearing the workshop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXW0C6oIxVE

Sorry. Noah was cleaning the workshop.

Can anyone advise whether I should buy an adjustable seat tube reamer or a straight 27.2 reamer? I've only used adjustable in the past but have never bought my own before.

Buy the longest one you can afford. The cyclo 27.2 that you can replace the cutter is rubbish as it's so short or often just twists past stuff and gives a shit cut. Adjustable ones are fine but you can ruin a frame quite easily. I have a helical 27.2 which is 15cm long and just works, but was 200 quid I think so quite costly.

Quite tempted to get some practice tubes and a cheap chromoly tube and lug set and have a go during the Christmas period. I appreciate silver is more difficult to work with, but I would rather avoid having to buy an expensive oxy-acetylene torch and a simple blowtorch is quite appealing... any other downside in brazing with silver?