Glued together CNC’d 7075 alu frame….

Not always approproate to cross-link, but this seemed worthy of some discussion on here… Even some of the Pinkbike comments are semi-intelligent for this one !

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/ministrys-glued-together-psalm-150-is-nearly-ready.html

Impressive stuff. Expensive way of doing it mind.

They might sell an unbonded one to Damien Hirst.

I feel it would be more fitting if they were held together with hopes and prayers.

Nice bit of self awareness in the comments.

The whole religious theme in the company and naming, I can’t help thinking it implies you need a bit of faith (in epoxy) to ride the thing…

Looks lovely. Bonding is mega strong and used in all sorts of critical stuff. I’d have no qualms about riding a glued together bike.

However,

fabrication method that can scale while still allowing for customization, flexibility, and agility,

Available sizes: 1.

The lotus Elise had a production run of well over 20yrs with a bonded aluminium chassis.

I appreciate a bike is a little different but that sort of bonding is common in aerospace too.

There’s already a thread running for that.

The Ugliest Mountainbikes of all time

Not got much of an engineering mind but damn it’s beautiful! Wasn’t the pole one (stamina?) bolted as well as glued? Almost can’t see the sense I’m not having some bolts as well

Looks nice. I’d ride it, I track a glued together car and don’t see this being any different.

Yeah, Stamina is, but didn’t mention that because of *that* Pinkbike incident…

No need for bolts, why add weight when it’s unnecessary.

Almost can’t see the sense I’m not having some bolts as well

I think that drilling and tapping bolt holes would actually cause stress risers and make it more likely to fail. The benefit of a machined frame, as I understand it, is that it can be made extremely precisely out of alloys that are difficult to weld and heat-treat. As long as it’s well designed and the bonding is done properly,  it should be very strong. Welding or bolting would probably result in a weaker or less durable frame.

The fact they seek out expensive methods knowing they can pass that expense on to mugs who will pay that ridiculous amount is very telling.  You can trust epoxy to a certain age,  but long term stuff like that can go wrong, we’ve all seen plastic, rubber and elastomers sort of melt or disintegrate after long periods so theres no guarantee it’ll stay bonded forever, but by that time it’ll be obsolete and totally wrong geometry.

The fact they seek out expensive methods knowing they can pass that expense on to mugs who will pay that ridiculous amount is very telling.

Does that make companies like Atherton the same ? how about carbon layup frames ?

You can get carbon frames for a fraction of 5 grand, but Athertons might be extracting the urine a tad with their prices and relying on their name,  Robot bikes didn’t exactly do great.

The lotus Elise had a production run of well over 20yrs with a bonded aluminium chassis

Many of the bonds on the Lotus chassis were rivetted as well.

funny how it looks great in the renderings, and in the detail close ups, but then you build it onto an OE fork and prop it up on a stick in the woods and its suddenly gopping

I like the looks – I wouldn’t buy one, but I appreciate the principal of the engineering, development etc.

Many of the bonds on the Lotus chassis were rivetted as well.

Pretty sure those are non structural rivets. The glue does the work.

Pretty sure those are non structural rivets. The glue does the work

Yeah, of course car companies waste time and money adding non-structural rivets!

The rivets are to quickly hold things in alignment whilst the glue cures.

Yeah, of course car companies waste time and money adding non-structural rivets!

Epoxy takes a while to cure, it’s good to hold the parts together while it sets…

I think my problem with this as a product is it’s just a why?

I mean I know lots of people still like to rail against Carbon for being wasteful and environmentally damaging but nibbing half a frame at a time out of a billet doesn’t feel like an efficient use of materials Vs boring old welding. (Discuss)

And While I get the whole “you can do custom geometry” idea, well yet again you can do that with welded tubes in a far more cost effective way.

I think in much the same way that “every problem looks like a nail to a man with a hammer” this is a case of everything is just G-code to a man with a CNC mill.

$5000 USD for an aluminium frame held together with Epoxy?
the inevitable question is always going to be, what’s the warranty like on that?

For part alignment during bonding they might. I was trying to find a public reference to the function of the rivets as most of the info requires an account to read. Best I found was; “To protect the adhesive joints from peel failure in an impact, thread-forming rivets – the rivet equivalent of self-tapping screws – are used as a supplemental jointing method.” (http://sandsmuseum.com/cars/elise/information/press/magazine/magazine1999/aluise.html). That strongly points to the adhesive being the primary bond.

It’s not just Lotus, that’s just an example. Bonding is widely used in Aerospace, and the Auto world. I seem to remember that anything on Aston’s VH platform is bonded, for instance. And whilst they fail in many other ways, the chassis is usually ok 😀

This seems to be a expensive solution to a question that nobody is asking. With hydro forming you can get most shapes required forms for an ally FS MTB, or if not a carbon or steel FS frame all are good solutions if well built. I’m not quite sure what Psalm are trying to bring to the party apart from bringing a new manufacturing method to MTB.

Speaking as the owner of a glued together aluminium car, I have no issue with it being glued apart from the issue that if you bent the chassis then you have to bin it. (rivets are just for structural alignment as said above). Elise series 1 are now 25yrs old and they might have issues but the glue coming unstuck isnt one of them. Lots of cars have some from of bonding now too.

5kUSD doesn’t seem all the pricy, reeeally.

neu Shop EN

€6750. Without shock.

€6750. Without shock.

I was gonna say that the Actofive is gorgeous, while this Psalm is almost right – but just a bit wide of the mark.

Then I saw the floating brake arm thingy on the Actofive – WTF?

 nibbing half a frame at a time out of a billet doesn’t feel like an efficient use of materials

Scrap aluminium is worth quite a bit for recycling. It won’t go to waste.

Part of that rear swingarm reminds me of the milling on my RC100…. nothing new

@Cookeaa – in the PinkBike Podcast he was on they asked him about the name and it was more about the industrial metal band Ministry and their sons Psalm 69 rather than because of any ties to religion

it was more about the industrial metal band Ministry

Well, ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long

I’ve got no issues with bonding. What I have issues with is how it looks – that’s rather gopping.

submarined

Looks lovely. Bonding is mega strong and used in all sorts of critical stuff. I’d have no qualms about riding a glued together bike.

As long as it’s done well, and not done by Pole

Acto fives aren’t bullet proof either, though hard to know how another frame would handle this…

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CjPfqaBqLYU/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

helps with internal headset routing ?

Nukeproof originally did bonded hubs, alloy flanges to a carbon center.

They all fell apart 😆

Scrap aluminium is worth quite a bit for recycling. It won’t go to waste.

it won’t be chucked in the bin, but there is still the energy used to make the aluminum that was subsequently removed and the energy used to machine out the frame, then the energy used to recycle the swarf.

that said, i have no idea if that is less or more energy than would be used to make the bike from tubes.

as for the looks, it doesn’t appear to be any more or less ugly than a current santa cruz.

Interesting idea. Most of it would come down the the engineering. I work with structural adhesives and they get used in things like this all the time.

It has to be well designed. And you have to pay asuch attention to the adhesives as you do to the welding.

For a standard MMA by the time you get to about a 30mm overlap on a lap shear the metal fails before the bond. much harder for a complex shape with different stresses.

This stuff is used already so normal environmental conditions shouldn’t be a concern.

by the time you get to about a 30mm overlap on a lap shear the metal fails before the bond.

Yes, you can see how the area behind the head tube has much more area for bonding. Same around the top tube-seat tube junction and around the BB area.

This is just making me sad thinking about the Elise I crashed and wrote off with a dented chassis 😥😯

There was a really good chat with the chap on the PinkBike Podcast a few months ago. Worth a listen.
Episode 145 – Chris Currie.

This bike makes me hate mountain bikers even more than I do normally.

This manufacturing method opens up a whole load of design options.  Instead, we are presented with a double triangle.

The question is, why did they go with the double triangle.  Is it because this is simply the best possible design? Numerous generative designs say it’s probably not.

No, it’s because they know that mountain bikers won’t buy a bike that doesn’t look like a bike.

At least roadies have the excuse that the UCI is literally trying to retard bike design and keep it strictly the way it was at the end of the steam age .  What excuse to mountain bikers have?