Looking at planning my next frame project and I fancy trying something a little different from my previous projects. My plan is something along the lines of the 90s Specialized S-Works or this:

I know bonding carbon tubes into metal lugs is not the most practical or strong way of building a bike but it should be a fun project and be pretty unique. I’ve been looking at sourcing short (15-20cm long) large diameter (~46mm for downtube, ~38mm for top and ~34mm for seat tube) steel tubing of a suitably thin wall section to be practical to build a bike frame from. My plan is to build a “mini” front triangle to get the alignment of each tube correct which I can cut up to use as the lugs.

Does anyone know of any steel frame producers or tubing suppliers who my have off-cuts of these kind of dimensions? All I can find online is full tubes which soon get pretty expensive and pretty wasteful when you only need 20% of them…

Go to Reynolds order tubes it varies from 15 to 20 quid per meter in their motorsport catalogue as them to send you a price list

If not Peter at Ceeway sometimes has foreign 4130 in stock also sells by the metre

It’s 1.2 mm thick on avg which means you won’t struggle to weld it

Drop Stevo at olsen bikes a line, his current work is on the Stw front page, he was originally messing with laser cutting tubes and getting them welded into lugs, then had a crack at 3D printing lugs and is now working in full carbon.

He’s a really friendly chap, I’m sure if he’s got the time he’ll give you some good pointers.

“sells by the meter” – my exact problem! 😕

Drop Stevo at olsen bikes a line, his current work is on the Stw front page, he was originally messing with laser cutting tubes and getting them welded into lugs, then had a crack at 3D printing lugs and is now working in full carbon.

I saw that, its’ what made me dig out the plans for this project again, it’s something I’ve been planning for a year or so but put it on the back burner when I got a kit car in February.

“sells by the meter” – my exact problem!

really buying a meter of tube and spending 20 quid is a problem

Not really, although I’m on a pretty tight budget as going back to uni for my final year in September and it just seems pretty wasteful to be buying 3x1m @ £20 a meter when all I need is a 20cm of each, which might have been something that was lying around on their floor after making a frame recently.

If that’s not the case then I’ll happily buy some.

Those sizes are fairly hefty for most framebuilders – might need to widen your search to motorbike folks?

Peter at Ceeway has Columbus cro-mo in 1.5m x 0.9mm wall. Sizes are in the attached stock list (£10-£15 a length and £7 shipping). He also has some nice 44mm head tubes in various lengths.

http://www.framebuilding.com/Spare%20Tubes.htm

http://www.framebuilding.com/what.htm (head tubes half way down).

Could try Curtis – they work with plain gauge T45 tube. Bicycle Academy work with plain gauge Columbus – ask them nicely for offcuts?

If your French is good then could try asking Kris at Julie Racing Designs for advice on adhesives (he’s been bonding carbon to steel for quite a few years).

1 metre wasteful? I’d be buying at least a metre 🙂 always good to have some spare if you make a cock-up….

Those sizes are fairly hefty for most framebuilders – might need to widen your search to motorbike folks?

That’s why I said go the motorsport tubing route.Its been a bit of a boon for the wheelchair stuff and the road stuff the extra wall thickness will be handy later.

Ps Im not being a tight arse but I don’t think Iv’e ever got any waste over 30-40mm long

You could look out for cracked/ dented frames and just cut out broken bits and replace with carbon

Mick I have lots of those sizes for building offroad racing wheelcbairs hence the suggestion of the motorsport stuff.

?

Oliver I just used about 30 metres of the stuff building exactly what your trying to do in both Ti and steel honestly then to drop weight you need to machine the wall based on your carbon tube diameter mandrel size and bond gap the motorsport tubes give you enough scope to do this I doubt very much you will be getting mandrels made to define your carbon tubes so Ime having wall allowance is better

Ps edited

Those sizes are fairly hefty for most framebuilders – might need to widen your search to motorbike folks?

That’s why I said go the motorsport tubing route.Its been a bit of a boon for the wheelchair stuff and the road stuff the extra wall thickness will be handy later.

Ps Im not being a tight arse but I don’t think Iv’e ever got any waste over 30-40mm long

forget the mumbo jumbo’isms scroll through this little lot

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflybicycles/page6

LAS Aerospace sell plain gauge 4130 Cromo by the foot. Wall thickness down to 0.7mm with the most useful sizes being 1.25mm and 0.9mm. If it’s not listed as in stock don’t fret, they’ll have it in within a week or so after you order.

https://www.lasaero.com/site/products/article?id=Z01NFVB05

Cheers

Adrian

Slightly off-topic.
OP, a few years ago I built a frame using carbon tubes and lugs using a kit from Dedacciai. I’m not sure if it’s still available.

I had read something about a kit being available, but tbh I want to make it myself as that’s part of the fun of it!

Thanks for that link bedfo, any extra sizes available the better as I can then hopefully get closer to optimum size.

Phil – some of those bikes are truly stunning and have probably swayed me to either clear coat the luggs or paint them a silver/metallic colour.

Make the lugs out of Alu, slap some C26 stickers on it and put it on ebay for a nice surprise when you get bored of it…
Only joking ! Don’t do this!