and would it be any good do you think?
was wondering why there aren’t any stainless steel bikes made.no worries about rust again.
is it something to do with not being able to weld stainless steel or some other reason why bike manufacturers don’t make bikes from stainless steel?

Oh and BTW …you numpty 😉

thanks oldgit 😀

Pipedream are doing a 931 frame at the moment too.

[Edit] — It’s considerably cheaper to buy their titanium frames though.

Alternatively, don’t “worry” about rust.

Not in production but here’s a very shiny frame from Cotic:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/ding-dong-stainless-931-cotic

Corrosion killed my Truetemper OX Platinum Kona frame a couple of years ago (very similar alloy to Reynolds’ 853) but perhaps the downtube was drawn a bit too thin.

Stainless frames would certainly appeal to me, but not at current prices! Same reason I wouldn’t buy Titanium on my current salary…

Colomcus XCr tubing and Reynolds 931 and 953 are all stainless steel and look beautiful.

Its a road bike but

I’m in the process of building a custom 953 road frame up for myself. Not very imminent at the moment but should be ace once it is done.

Are you building it yourself Matthew? I’d love either that Cinelli above, or something custom made in the UK from either XCr or 931/953. Not sure where to even start looking though.

It’s all gonna be 650b 953 I tells yer!

*goes away to prepare tinfoil hat*

Not sure why but the picture of the Cotic took me back to when i used to drool over chrome bmx’s in the 80’s

they look lovely,but by the gods the frames aren’t cheap 😯 i would still love one though 😀

Anyone know what the corrosion resistance of 953 is like?
Just noticed something I made last year out of 303 is really badly pitted now.

brant – Member
Alternatively, don’t “worry” about rust.

That’s my approach to bike frames/parts 🙂

I thought 953 tubing was conceived with road bikes in mind?

When did they start making larger dia. tubes for MTB?

Just cos you can doesn’t mean you should! The temptation to do something different for *cough* marketing reasons rather than good engineering practice is just too much for some.

Stainless Steel comes in many flavours with all sorts of alloys available. Generally speaking they have a higher chrome content are much harder than regular steel alloys, more difficult to work with and more prone to metal fatigue in an application like a bike frame. So if you want a bike that rides really harsh and won’t hold together (although the tubes will last forever!) I’d pick a stainless steel. Reynolds bike specific alloys are the only ones I’d even look at, but they can’t break the laws of physics. Oooo it looks so lovely though.

Waterford do stainless road bikes, stunning any they will hold together!! The thing is cost you can build a bike for any price!! but working with SS is difficult to do right so the cost is high also as high as good Ti. so it’s as much how it’s built as what it’s built from IMHO.

IanMunro
Anyone know what the corrosion resistance of 953 is like?
Just noticed something I made last year out of 303 is really badly pitted now.

http://reynoldstechnology.biz/faqs/materials/1
“Corrosion resistance is similar to type 410 stainless steels. In normal use, brown staining of the surface does occur due to sweat, salty roads etc if not protected/painted. The staining can be removed with “scotch-brite” or an equivalent, and trials have shown that this is a superficial stain that does not weaken the tubes.”

http://www.kvastainless.com/bicycles.html

http://www.moultonbicycles.co.uk/models.html

On the subject of corrosion as long as you have some aluminium in contact with the stainless steel then it will do some sacrificial corrosion, a few expensive bike components should be enough.
http://www.bssa.org.uk/topics.php?article=89

Whatnobeer, I’m one third of the team at 18 Bikes so we (i.e. the other Matt and I) are building it together. It’s a lugged frame but built with more modern tube sizes and geometry than the lugs would suggest.

Not sure when it’ll be done but should be sometime later this year. Depends when the jig is clear of the customer bikes that are lining up to be welded at the moment.

Dazza does some nice modern oversize st st lugs

Our Skinnymalinky will be available in a stainless version. Probably later in the Summer once we iron (see what I did there) out a couple of design issues.

Awesome Matthew, I’d love to see some photos when its done.

The skinymalkinky sounds interesting too. Once I’ve got a few pennies saved and you’ve got the design sorted I’d be keen to have a look at that too 🙂

Oh there will definitely be photos. During the build and once done.