I am a frame builder AMA

Thanks, as I suspected.

I’m eventually going to build a winter / everyday bike. What tubeset should I use?

I weigh 60kg, it’ll be a 54cmish size, TIG welded with a Columbus Hiver or Condor Pioggia fork (360g with large clearances and mudguard eyelets!).

Do I go through the complex ordering process with Reynolds to get 631, possibly not meeting their minimum order and asking a favour from one of you

or

Order Columbus something (thoughts?) from ceeway along with all the little bits

or

Get True Temper from Henry James (probably pricey inc. shipping but quite cool).

I’m ok at TIG but would no doubt blow holes in a fancy tubeset. I have about 2m of 28.6mm x 0.9mm 4130 tube from Aerocom to practice on, but I’d prefer to use something butted and lighter for the actual frame. As it’ll have a 1 1/8” HT I think I’d like to use oversize tubes, though I’m guessing non-round tubes will be more than my paper-template-hand-mitring can handle.

Reynolds 631 is nice and dependable. The equivalent from a wall thickness and 'ease of welding' point of view would be zona or cromor from columbus. The benefit of going the ceeway route and getting columbus is that you can get everything you need from one place.

I thought tru temper had folded, but they still seem to be available at henry james, so who knows what happened there? I don't know much about them and have only ever used one tube from them.

In theory bikeCAD can do shaped tube mitre templates, but in reality you can't 'define' them enough in the drawings for it to do it well.

Thanks. It’d be slightly misplaced patriotism / nostalgia to doggedly stick with Reynolds as I’m a Scot. The all in-one think from Ceeway is appealing.

Free BikeCAD won’t do mitres right? I’ve been trying to get RattleCAD to work on my MacBook but it seems you need a degree in computing from the 90s. Maybe I just have to find someone with a pc laptop.

Cool project.

re. the windows pc CAD software, have you tried Crossover for Mac?

when I was a student I used a dodgy copy of it for ages, and couldn't fault it.

I used Zona on my winter bike - which also has a Hiver fork. I'm happy to be patriotic and buy from Reynolds once they make it slightly less impossible to buy their products.

I thought tru temper had folded, but they still seem to be available at henry james, so who knows what happened there?

I don't think they folded, I think they just decided that bicycle tubesets were too much effort for not enough return, so have planned to stop doing them. Presumably Henry James has reasonable stocks though.

Yeah that was it, and are going to keep making golf clubs for the Donald.

Variwall is the new go to "patriot act" tubeset from what I've seen..

http://www.handbuiltbicyclenews.com/c33-tubing--materials/142-true-temper-to-discontinue-bicycle-tubing-line

http://www.vari-wall.com/about-us/butted-bicycle-tubing

A slightly convoluted way of doing this... you can make your bike in Solid-works and import it to Rhinoceros as surfaces then unroll the tubes to make templates.

Also a few years ago I ordered from Reynolds and found them very helpfull. Order was just over £100 from memory.

I could model it in Rhino to begin with, as I use it for work sometimes. I like the safety net of software designed for frame building though - I feel like I might draw something in Rhino and not realise it's totally wack before I cut tubes.

Good call though, I'll probably model the wishbone seat stay in Rhino and unwrap the surfaces. Trying to eliminate as many compound mitres as possible in the design.

Should I make a Current Project thread?

Just come across this.

I've not worked out how to use it yet but seems pretty perfect -generates full size drawings, tube mitres (inc. BB intersection and I think fastback SS) all in an excel that'll run on anything.

Should I make a Current Project thread?

100% yes

Thanks for your advice, it’s a big help.
For brazing a rack would you use bronze or silver?
I’m particularly keen to make myself a custom rack for an existing bike. Also it seems like a good practice project.

I'd use brass for that mate. If I remember correctly, Ceeway stock some rack making parts.

Compass Cycles in America do some cool tabs for racks and their frame alignment tool is pretty good as well. Postage + import duty though :(

Where can I get a machined HT for a integrated / semi integrated headset? 1 1/8”, natch.

I can’t braze cups onto a stock HT. Unless they can TIGed on...

I don't think you can. I've looked, and haven't been able to find one. Instead I've bought some thick-walled 4130 Chromoly and I'm going to machine one myself. Not that I've started doing it yet.

Surely that's just a 44mm headtube no, or am I missing something?

PMW 44mm headtube with cane creek 40 semi integrated headset, 28.6mm steerer.

You can use a 44mm headtube with internal semi-integrated cups. The trouble is, if you've got an oldskool 1 1/8" fork with a 45mm (or so) diameter crown it looks a bit lost underneath a 44mm headtube. The fork I'll be using with my custom machined headtube is a Ritchey canti cross fork with a 45mm diameter crown, so a 44mm headtube, with an external diameter of 50mm, would look a bit odd.

Cool yeah I agree it can easily look shit. So you're looking for something a bit like Ritchey do with swiss cross etc?

No, not with those flared cups at each end of the headtube. My length of Chromoly is 1.75" OD with about a 5mm wall thickness. So my plan is (after cutting it down to size and facing the ends) to roughly machine the cups for the integrated headset at both ends, thin down the walls internally between the two cups down to say 1mm using a boring bar, and then finish off the integrated cups using a cutter for integrated headsets.

Like this in cross-section:

1 Attachment

Ok, I'm being thick here, but if is going to be a standard 1 1/8" integrated headset wont the ID have to be 44mm anyway?

Slow internet, so have only just seen the image. It's not a massive difference from a 46mm OD PMW one though? You think it'll be enough to make a difference visually?