I agree with Dave. Any alloy of SS that can be made into a tube will not be as strong as Titanium. Maybe if aircraft needed some 17-4ph tubing then some way could be found to make it, and this is very nice stuff indeed. But I know of no tubing made from it. Of course it is very difficult to make tubing from 6-4 titanium alloy, so tubing is made from a slightly easier to work 3-2.5 alloy. But the only reason bicycles are made from this is because the aircraft industry uses it. So making bike frames from stainless steel is just about as much trouble as titanium, but is weaker and weighs more. Also the logical way to join the SS frame would not be lugs.
Jim Merz Bainbridge Is. WA
-----Original Message----- From: classicrendezvous-admin@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-admin@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of davebohm Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 8:44 AM To: jimmycue@att.net; classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: Re: [CR]Stainless steel bike
There are many reasons for this.
Firstly, I believe that the Columbus product came out right around the death of steel in general for a frame material. Columbus was trying to respond to the Titanium surge at that point.
It cost a lot of money. Nearly as much as Titanium, and steel, no matter what it is, does not have the prestige that Ti does.
It's a real bear to work with. Hard to cut and braze. TIG welding on Stainless requires the same procedures as does Titanium and once again a builder could not command as much money. Not many builders (maybe five or six?) can lug/braze the material safely. It was one of those things that if all you made was but one or two, you couldn't get down the technique necessary for a safe joint. This alone scared off most builders, and if I wasn't so naive it would have me too.
finishing could be a pain. Of course you could give it a brushed finish which is also the easiest to take care of but full polish is very, very time consuming and once again usually made the material unprofitable.
Otherwise, I hoard two sets for myself someday.
Dave Bohm Bohemian Tucson Az ----- Original Message ----- From: jimmycue@att.net To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 8:10 AM Subject: [CR]Stainless steel bike
Stainless steel bike bytes sounds like good idea,why
didnt colombus stainless tubeset last for very long?
Would make chroming the frame a mute point.
Jimmy Katynski Madison Hts Mi
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