Anyone know of any UK frame builders making tapered steel forks?
For road or mountain.
Something like 44bikes make.
Cheers

Why not use a reducer crown race on a 1 1/8″ fork?

Singular Puffin has a tapered headtube and steel forks.

Shand’s new Bahoookie comes with their own fork…don’t know if it’ll be sold on its own however.

Can that, the Shand is a carbon fork

Wanted to avoid the look of a reducer.
Last time I asked Shand they weren’t doing their own tapered forks. Maybe worth asking again.

I guess it’d be quite heavy unless someone invested in the tooling to forge a lugged crown to take a 1.5″ steerer? Even then Steel steerer’s are pretty stiff (compared to aluminium) so the taper bit is just adding weight.

Out of interest why steel? And what frame?

Looking at custom steel road touring frame able to swap from carbon to steel forks. Seems like more choice in tapered carbon fork, so wanted steel forks to match.

Steel tapered forks are a bit of a nightmare. If you can get over the issues of cost, weight, ride quality and aesthetics, then it’s all good!

If we made a tapered steerer version of our Stoater fork, the steerer alone would cost more than all the other parts put together.

Weight, a 1.5″ tapered steerer on it’s own (300mm length) will weigh about 450g. Our Stoater 1-1/8″ fork with an uncut steerer weighs 720g. It’s going to be a heavy fork.

A tapered steerer is going to look weird. Skinnyish blades into a 44mm headtube looks odd.

If you can’t live with the look of skinny blades and want a blade that matches and looks proportional to the headtube then you end up with an overbuilt mountainbike fork that won’t ride as well.

Yes, it’s one of those things that can be built, but probably shouldn’t 😉

However if you do want one, it is possible.

I’ll echo what those two ^ have just said, I can do one, but I probably shouldn’t for exactly the reasons Mr Shand has outlined

Matt

Well that’s me told!
Probably fine on a fat/plus bike but not road. Thanks for the directness.

Our Stoater 1-1/8″ fork with an uncut steerer weighs 720g.

Mr Shand would you care to put a fork on a set of scales and take a picture please……

That seems awfully light for a full steel fork with a long heavy steerer

Mr Shand would you care to put a fork on a set of scales and take a picture please……

That seems awfully light for a full steel fork with a long heavy steerer

Will do that tomorrow for you but who said it had a long heavy steerer?

Long and heavy steerer – ment in that the the steerer will be long and uncut, so prob a lot longer than any user would actually need so unwanted weight. Hence even more surprised at the 720g claim.

Not knocking you by the way. If you can build a full steel fork with disc mounts for 720g with an uncut steerer – bravo that man. That’s why I’d like to see it.

Me too

I wanted similar, tapered with anything cage mounts so got involved in the Rooster Kickstarter a year ago with a fork only option. Sam suggested he might sell forks on their own in future after kickstarter. Still waiting…

Lee Cooper built me some lovely Columbus straight tapered forks around 15 years ago….brilliant!

Here ya go.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/r56xno]Stoater fork[/url] by shandcycles, on Flickr

And you promise the steerer tube isn’t resting on a packet of biscuits?

Very impressive – Bravo that man!

Pfft, they’re heavy – I can beat that*:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/qpZgK6]Untitled[/url] by Ben Cooper, on Flickr

*by cheating 😉

Didn’t think it was ever in doubt 720g 700c forks .. I’ve an old 90,s set of reynolds 531 forks that are 665g .. Ok minus disc mount etc but modern steel can be pretty light 🙂

straight tapered forks

❓

straight tapered forks?

he means straight blades that have a taper.