Originally Posted by T-Mar
No, but it's closer than many people think. Let's take a look at the figures quoted for the Miyata tubesets. Their CrMo starts out at a tensile strength of 82 ksi. After brazing it drops to 73 ksi, which is about 91% of the original strength.
For Mangalight it starts out at 72 ksi, but it retains about 97% of it's strength after brazing which works out to 70 ksi. So while Manglight retains a higher percentage of it's original tensile strength, it is still slightly weaker than CrMo after brazing, simply because the initial strength is less. .
By comparison, Miyata's hi-tensile steel starts out at 60 ksi and drops to 50 ksi after brazing, retaining only 83% of its strength.
These are cool numbers!
Originally Posted by T-Mar
Steel still survives, but mostly as hi-tensile in the department store bicycles were very low cost is the prime factor and weight is not a concern.
Of course, high end steel is still very much alive and well. Plenty of folks still making top quality lugged and TIG welded steel frames. Heron, Mercian, Soma, Waterford, Trek, Bruce Gordon....