Should I Waxoyl my Cotic Soul?

Hi,

Not posted for a while but sat on a conference call at work and a thought popped into my head.

I bought a Cotic Soul a few weeks ago which has re-awakened my passion for biking, however when cleaning off after a ride I notice brown water coming from the drain holes on the rear seat stays.

Now I also own a 1970 MG midget and have carefully protected it from the ravages of the rust worm by a comprehensive injection of Waxoyl, known only to bearded classic car enthusiats but v effective in keeping out the rust.

So question is has anyone bothered to rustproof a steel bike – would add only a few gms to the weight. Also not sure if rust threatens the structure of a bike in the same way as a car.

Back to the conference call

Chris

If the inside of the frame is not treated ie painted, phosphated etc.. There is J R Weigles framesaver.
But anything from Duck Oil to Zinc primer paint would be better than nothing. There is also ACF 50.

Probably not worth it

I do steel frames, and forks for that matter, with J W Weigle's frame-saver. A £10 or whatever it is can does a few bikes, as you say minimal weight, and if it stops the inside rusting, even a little, gotta be worth it.

APF

Frame Saver or equivalent thirded.

The only steel bike I owned that hadn't been done rusted through.

I've Waxoyl-ed a couple of steel frames, only takes five mins with the aerosol version prior to building them up.

Do it on a warm day – spray stuff in, shake and twirl frame around to spread the stuff into all the nooks and crannies, then leave it in the sun for half an hour so that any excess melts and drains out. Simples

I used frame saver on mine – in fact I make sure I have thoroughly coated the inside of the tubes on all my steel frames before building them……just in case.

Takes 30 minutes max.

ACF-50 for the win, dear but brilliant stuff..

Anyone know if 456's are treated or do I need to do this myself?

Cheers

The only reason to do this is to keep it shiny/spangly inside, you don't need to worry about rusting-out issues.

My recommendation is also for ACF-50, easier to apply than waxoyl and thus works better IMO.
Can be bought for ~£13 from motorbike suppliers, I got mine from ebay.

Afro, on-one don't treat them, I did mine for the minimal effort it took.

I think the Cotic's are phosphated, sure Cy posted something about this a few months back…

I waxoyled my PA frame a few years ago. No rust yet 😀

if you waxoyl your frame, bear in mind you will not be able to powder coat or use any paint that needs an oven.not a problem at the moment fair enough, but in future who knows. 🙂

DON'T. I used Waxoyl on 2 Inbred frames, main triangle and the seat/chain stays. It leeched out through the drain holes at speed each ride onto the rotor and knackered the brake pads. I ended up removing it by pouring boiling water over and into the tubes. Horrible messy stuff.

Someone claimed a while ago, in reponse to a similar question, that modern steel alloys have components designed to prevent anything more than surface rust.

a dab of silicone sealant stops it leaking out through the holes in the seat and chainstays…

Cold galvanising spray / aerosol .

wax-oyl will add a lot of weight

I'd be amazed if an Inbred or any bike made out of decent steel managed to rust through. Where the paint's chipped off mine, it's gone black and corroded very very slowly. Nothing like the bright orange mess you get instantly on mild steel bar bodywork.

In fact, I've got a 1953 frame made of 531 in the shed, it's obviously spent some time in a hedgerow, got loads of paint missing, and that's the same. Turned black rather than rusty. It does have a sticker saying that it was "Bonderized" though.

as an off shoot of this why is it that so many frames still have a hole in the frame stay brace? it usually holds a reflector on cheapo bikes but most top end ones never come with the daft things yet lots still hae the m6 hole there?

wwaswas

Yes it will, and it will also stop the frame from draining so kind of defeats the aim of the exercise.

Unless you ride your bike along the beach for two or three hours a day and then store your bike outside in the garden this is a complete waste of money and time!

As Tron said, modern steel used to make bike frames (especially things like 853 used to make Souls) are designed to withstand normal rain-water type corrosion and will discolour rather than go orange, flake and fall to pieces

davidtaylforth – Member
Probably not worth it

Possibly the most eloquently helpful reply I've read on STW for a long time 🙄

PaulMc – on most steel frames the only place for the water to get in the stays is via the holes at the seat tube or via the holes they leave to let the welding gasses out near the dropouts.

Blocking the holes at the dropouts (which aren't put there to let water out, just gas during welding) won't significantly affect the frames ability to shed water as they will, on most bikes be higher than the BB anyway.

The frame I had rust through was an original 853 Inbred (with the sticker still on it!). Although it was the top little tube at the top of the seat stays that gave out.

IF you want to keep it long term (ie. possibly have it repaired by welding) then don't have it Waxoyl-ed according to Brant.

Dinitrol – for automotive – smells/looks like frame saver but lots cheaper + is thin and creeps, unlike waxyol which sometimes bridges joints as is thick, though thinning it and warming the metal helps

wwaswas – your frame failed on the jumper tube between the seat stay and the seat tube (or the single tube coming off it at least)?

That's a very strange place for corrosion attack to take place as it's towards the top of the frame and is angled down towards the drop-outs.

Sounds like you had a bad frame there rather than a fundamental corrosion resistance issue.

"withstand normal rain-water type corrosion"
What is rainwater type corrosion?
How light / heavy is light corrosion , does it make the frame heavier?

On older road bikes (Reynolds 653, Columbus KL amongst others) sometimes the chainstays would corrode through from the inside. It was only when the paint was blasted from the frame, prior to respraying that small spots / patches of orange/brown (rust) could be seen on the otherwise matt grey freshly blasted chainstays.

A couple of winters riding along salt encrusted roads probably contributed to the rusting.

Low alloy steels such as Reynolds 853 probably are slightly more corrosion resistant than mild steel, but only slightly.

From the Reynolds site http://reynoldstechnology.biz/faqs/materials/1
with reference to Reynolds 953
"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."
Thats stainless steel corrosion that they are talking about, not low alloy steel.

C_G – the stubby little tube that comes from the back of the seat tube – the base of that just rusted out.

country gent we do ride along the sea wall, I think I will push you in Sunday and watch your shitty old school bike disintegrate….

I usually give steel frame s a good blast of cavity protector before using them as I ride/commute all year round. Before building up my new Soul, I e-mailed cotic with the very same question. The response was that the frames have already been treated inside with a rust preventer (zinc something or other) but if you want to sqirt your own stuff in the tubes then it won't do any harm (perhaps I should have re-phrased that). I took the belt and braces approach and gave all the tubes a blast with some cavity protector and let it dry/drip out before building up.

Hi All,

Thanks for the great response – i think i will spray a bit in the tubes as I already have a can of Waxoyl in the garage!!

Will let you know if anything dreadful happens as a result!!

Cheers

Chris

Cheers Tinsy, can always relay on you to add "weight" to a debate!

At the end of the day, if you look after your bike and store it somewhere relatively dry then catastrophic corrosion failure should not be a concern.

Waste of time*. My old inbred SS was unpainted for over a year, it was covered in oxidization, when eventually I got round to having it painted, we just brushed it off with wire wool.

Betcha you get shot of the frame before anything like it gets to a point where internal rust could be a problem…

* For me, what you do with your time to make your self feel better/waste 20 minutes of your life is entirely your decision…

yer bound to buy a new one before it rusts out

i think it's a good idea. Did my steel bike 10 years ago and still have it.

I've asked about protecting steels frames before and a lot of folk don't seem to think that there's much point, but equally steel does rust. I do mine as a matter of course now using Framesaver (£10-£15 a tin with postage for enough to do 2 coats for 2 frames). It seems well worth it for a bit of piece of mind. When my 853 Sirius arrives I'll be doing that too.