Living & Learning.....
 

Ok folks, here's another head-scratcher.......for me, at least.
Apparently Toshiba (I assume it's the same guys as all the electronic stuff comes from) also made
bicycle frame tubing. I was at the local vintage bike shop today and was looking at this very nice
Nishiki when I noticed this strange label as shown below. Does anyone have more insight into
how popular their tubing was ?? Did they actually have their own tubing plant......or did they just
rebrand someone else's tubing ?? All info greatly appreciated.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...91eaedc411.jpg

A search on BikeForum brought up this thread: Toshiba High Tensile Tubing?

By the way there is nothing wrong with high tensile tubing as long as you know what you have or are getting. This is likely a lower end bike, but there is more to a bike frame than just the tubing. The next factor is how well it's made and the next is the geometry. There were lots of great bikes made with straight steel tubes that ride great and are still desirable today. The Peugeot UO-8 is one that we all agree that fit this formula.

So, is the Nishiki that you are looking at worthy? I don't know. Perhaps others have more experience with them. I will say that a low end Nishiki is pretty good as long as the condition is good and the price if fair for a low end bike. One other thing is that Japanese components regardless of whether they are SunTour, Shimano, SR or Sugino are better than the Simplex's, Hurets, Pivo and AVA that these bike boom bikes came with.

Well, a little research in my library of technical books turned up some interesting facts.
As we all know "high" is a relative term.
F'rinstance my 1981 Schwinn-Psonic Le Tour Tourist has a sticker on the bottom of the seat tube claiming "Certified AISI 1020 Tubing".
A little research in my reference books shows C1020 hot rolled steel has a tensile strength of 67,000 PSI while the cold drawn version has a tensile strength of 74,000 PSI.
Now C1020 steel is pretty low in the pantheon of alloy steels which starts at C1008 and runs as far as C12(L)15, all of these alloys having NO chromium or molybdenum in them.
Once you get into C1320 and higher numbers (C2XXX, C3XXX and C4XXX), you are now looking at the true cro-moly steels with increasing tensile strengths compared to the non-cr-mo steels.
So the C1024 tubing mentioned by pirate (in the linked thread above) is not anything special but is somewhat stronger than my C1020 steel.
C1024 steel has a hot rolled strength of ~69,000 PSI ad a cold drawn strength of ~78,000 PSI......so it is somewhat stronger than C1020.
At the end of all this arcania, we can see that "high tensile" is certainly a very relative term and is, IMO, no more than an advertising trick to fool the unknowing consumer.