Supersteel

[gibson]

Was considering a steel frame and thinking about Reynolds 953.It is new and probably
a challange to the frambuilders skills with 2mm depth.Do any framebuilders have
experience of making frames from this material?

[prevail24]

Indy fab (ifbikes.com) were part of the development team for the steel.

[Falanx]

Thylacine was testing/starting to use it?

[Thylacine]

Decided to concentrate more on Ti. We'd do a 953 frame if someone wanted one, but it's a tough ask when it's essentially the same weight and price as Ti.

Sure it's stronger, but it's also flexier, difficult to get, needs heat-treating, tech support is wishy-washy....

The potential is there but it's not really there yet IMHO, plus I wanna make MTBs out of the stuff but Reynolds has designed the tubes for road use first which is a bit annoying.

[dlbcx]

Is it trickier to weld than Ti or Al?

[Falanx]

Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho... That old chestnut :)

It's an age-hardening steel, and the recommended filler wire from Reynolds is way below standard. Aside from that, as Thylacine has pointed out, until we have both MTB and road tubesets available, we can't comment on all geometries and such, but the whole shape, assemble, weld, post-age doohickey accompanied (by as far as I am concerned) the dubious properties in parts of the HAZ after post-age treatment leads me to steer people away from it for a while...

[Thylacine]

No biggie. It's not like 853/Life/EOM is exactly crap anyway, and if anyone is THAT worried about corrosion resistance, just Electrodeless Nickel Plate the frame and problem solved.

Or get Ti :)

[Falanx]

I'll stick with steel, thanks :)
When I'm rich enough, I may even get you to build one for me....