Off-Beat Steel Tubesets?

[cjroot2004]

Hello!

Does anyone know what happened to some of the smaller, "off-beat" steel tubeset manufacturers? For example: Vitus or Excell (France), Oria (Italy), or Tange (Japan)? I have worked with Reynolds, Columbus, and Deddaciai, and I would love to try something different. Thanks!


Christopher Root

[Rosko]

Hello!

Does anyone know what happened to some of the smaller, "off-beat" steel tubeset manufacturers? For example: Vitus or Excell (France), Oria (Italy), or Tange (Japan)? I have worked with Reynolds, Columbus, and Deddaciai, and I would love to try something different. Thanks!


C R

I know Tange has been back(?) in the game for a while now, they are on FB https://www.facebook.com/tube.tange try contacting them directly?
IIRC Merry Sales is the distro for USA? Might be worth a call. I have NOT used any since '97 or so- but I do remember being impressed with the quality at the time. Good luck!

[steve garro]

IIRC Merry Sales is the distro for USA?

Yep.

Pretty standard diameters and thicknesses for general road use.

NOT the same as the old Prestige, which was beautiful, I got to use lots of it, just beautiful.
Too short for MTB's nowadays

Some other really beautiful tubing is Kaisei, which can be acquired from United Bicycle Institute


- Garro.

[rellis]

Merry Sales has some Tange Prestige tubing in stock, just looked at their web site.

[Eric Estlund]

I believe Kaisai is what became of Ishiwata. Really nice tubes.

It's also my understanding that Excell closed down it's bike tubing line quite some time ago- I'm not sure if they are still producing steel tubes for other industries for closed up entirely?

[steve garro]

I believe Kaisai is what became of Ishiwata. Really nice tubes.

It's also my understanding that Excell closed down it's bike tubing line quite some time ago- I'm not sure if they are still producing steel tubes for other industries for closed up entirely?

Both correct as far as I know.

The last Excell tube I had was SO THIN that I don't even know what happened to it (or, where I got it)

Also as a heads-up, Tange has a post up to watch out for counterfeit Chinese tubing.


Kaisei *is* the descendent of Ishiwata, they took a hit as they are located in Fukushima, but are back up & running - UBI sell whole tubesets, shiny, straight, round, and crisply defined butts and tapers.

- Garro.

[michäel2]

maybee not as off beat as you might want it to be but im keen to give true tempers s-3 tube set a go for my next roady.

[steve garro]

When you mean not the same do you mean it's not the heat treated stuff from the 90s? Does it look different?

It's totally not the same as in it's totally not the same - at all.

Specs

Where it's made:

http://www.tange-design.com/history.php

Not to say it's bad

But there are suppliers with known supply chains that I'd rather use.

- Garro.

[suhacycles]

Gotcha...

Well, maybe a good time to try that Kaisei stuff! I've looked at the UBI site but couldn't tell what their alloys are like relative to Columbus or TT. Are their CroMo tubes essentially like Verus and their NiCroMo like Verus HT or is it more like OX or 853?

[e-RICHIE]

Gotcha...

Well, maybe a good time to try that Kaisei stuff! I've looked at the UBI site but couldn't tell what their alloys are like relative to Columbus or TT. Are their CroMo tubes essentially like Verus and their NiCroMo like Verus HT or is it more like OX or 853?

First and last names, please...

[suhacycles]

Gotcha...

Well, maybe a good time to try that Kaisei stuff! I've looked at the UBI site but couldn't tell what their alloys are like relative to Columbus or TT. Are their CroMo tubes essentially like Verus and their NiCroMo like Verus HT or is it more like OX or 853?

Doh... sorry!

Hansen Su

[e-RICHIE]

Doh... sorry!

Hansen Su

Appreciated.

[steve garro]

Gotcha...

Well, maybe a good time to try that Kaisei stuff! I've looked at the UBI site but couldn't tell what their alloys are like relative to Columbus or TT. Are their CroMo tubes essentially like Verus and their NiCroMo like Verus HT or is it more like OX or 853?

Very workable, real nice stuff.

They have a "regular" tube set, and the heat treated, which is harder - K19 I think = it's REALLY nice stuff, but road lengths only.

Also Verus is Cro-mo.

I do not think it contains any great amounts of Niobium, like the Spirit alloys

I think OX is pretty high in Chromium, it's HARD - I use lots of Supertherm now
- Garro.

[mmoore]

With the heat treated steel, do you guys send them back out for treating after you build the frame?

[Curt Goodrich]

With the heat treated steel, do you guys send them back out for treating after you build the frame?

I do not.

[afwalker]

Joe Bringheli is offering some Walter/Thecno tubing that is in both seamless stainless and CrMo.
http://www.bringheli.com/PDF/INVESTCAST.pdf
The stainless is made is Sweden, then formed in Italy. Not sure about the CrMO.
I'm trying some Thecno seat stays in stainless to work with an XCR bike because the XCR seat stays are 0.5mm and ridiculous for me to TIG weld. The thecno are 0.65 so that should make my life easier.
The CrMo are decent prices also.
andy

[e.Gellie]

Joe Bringheli is offering some Walter/Thecno tubing that is in both seamless stainless and CrMo.
http://www.bringheli.com/PDF/INVESTCAST.pdf

That's interesting to know Andy.

If the stainless tubeset chainstays are tapered and oval, I'd consider using them. Same with the tapered seatstays and fork blades.

[e.Gellie]

For any material, I wouldn't use plain-gauge main tubes, i.e. not butted, especially with thin walls <0.9mm. That's because engineering theory supports good old-school practice of using butted main tubes to make a more robust frame than plain gauge tubing, especially with thin walls where the frame is meant to have some amount of nice flex and be supple. You 'might' claw back some robustness if you add 'Bontrager gussets' to the plain-gauge tubing. Non-tapering bridge structures basically broke at the ends so structural engineers all moved on to stress-distributing tapering designs. https://www.google.com.au/search?q=b...=lnms&tbm=isch

I reckon most novice framebuilders asking questions here wouldn't understand the significance of butting and would benefit enormously by a better understanding. I only worked out the importance of butting a few years ago and before that I thought it was simply to save weight and make the frame feel more lively but those two things are just a bonus. That is why I also prefer to use single butted chainstays, which as well as tapering, are thicker-walled at the BB end.

I'd say it's quite daring to use thin-wall plain-gauge main tubes in a frame because the problem that led to Reynolds' innovation still applies since designing robust yet lightweight bike frames is about designing-out 'stress-risers'. Butting was developed to make plain-gauge tubing more robust, by reducing the stress in the material at the ends, right next to the welds or the lugs. Heavier-duty frames may well use plain-gauge tubing with few premature failures, but I only ride and make lively ride-feel frames.
"In 1895 [Reynolds] began examining a problem which cursed many frame builders of the day: how to join thin, lightweight tubes without weakening the joints at which they are connected.............Reynolds came upon a way to increase the thickness of the walls at the ends of the tubes only (and so reducing the stress that the material experienced) , .........Up until then frame builders had to manually insert a liner into the end of each tube to reinforce the joint or use heavy, thick tubing."
From the second paragraph of Reynolds history

This is my opinion, which I can also argue in more technical, engineering terms. I've also inspected or repaired frames that matched the theory; e.g. a frame that had a heavy frontal collision; the top and down tubes crumpled away from the welded ends, away from the braze-ons, where the tube wall thinned at the butt, (that I measured directly by chopping up the frame to check). The location of the crumple very clearly indicated the location of the most highly stressed material in the tubing, where you'd want it to be, away from the weld or the relatively 'sharp' lugs. That design would also do well in terms of resisting premature fatigue failure because the tubing material that is most highly stressed is 'clean', placed away from 'stress-risers' that would reduce the robustness.

I think we need a separate 'sticky' post for basic good design theory.

[Mark Kelly]

Further to the above, for 17 years my only bike was a Kerry Hopkins built with Reynolds 700 and it rode like crap for all those 17 years.

I'd ordered 653, he sent 700. For those that don't have elephantine memories for Reynolds trivia, 700 was heat treated steel as used in 753 but the tubing was not butted. I never understood why it didn't ride as well as the 1976 Raleigh Competition it replaced (cracked head tube) until I measured the tubing thicknesses.

[afwalker]

I had to do some digging, but here are the specs for Thecno Inox, by Walter through Bringheli
0001.jpg
Not butted, Joe can mix and match with XCR however. I'm just planning to use the seat stays.
There are fork blades however.
andy