Originally Posted by
erichsia
The "cromo" is not seamless, I can clearly see the welds. The reinforced headtube, is nice, but so what? The drop-outs are the same Maxway ones used on a BD frame that retails for $249 shipped. So yes, you can get all those for that price point, and get a nice fork in the process as well. IRO, BD, Surly, Alien, Soma, and many others all offer more for your money than this 183rd St. deal.
tubing is made two ways. 1st is Drawn over mandrel. If you've ever played with a playdough machine and squeezed out a long str or rod shape it's kida like that. That is refered to as seamless tubing or DOM.
This style of tubing is speced for race car frames and rollbars and other serious mechanical needs.
Seamed cromo is made by taking thin strips of flat cromoly and rolling the tube around a form and then welding the seam. you cant see the seam on the outside of the tube. Next time you're at Home Depot, stop by the fence post steel tubes, you can see this seam on the inside of the tubes. This grade of tubing, even thought it might have the same 4130 material is NEVER used on a rollcage or other serious spec. Seamed cromo works ok for a bicycle frame. Seamless works better.
There's plenty of ways to build a cheaper frame. One way is to place a cromoly sticker on the frame all it needs is 1 cromoly tube. (that tube is the one that the sticker must be on so trust me there's plenty of frames out there with cromoly seat tubes! The rest could behigh-ten steel on cheaper frames.
The finnish on the black 183rd st is called E.D. black and it's a semi gloss black that can be left as is or you can powdercoat right over it with-out prep work.