Fletch521

I have ben doing some research on the two Trek 412s I bought last fall and learned they where made with Ishiwata 022 Double-butted Chrome Molly Tubing. I had been out or the cycling circles from the mid 70s until the last few months and have some catching up to do. I have never heard of Ishiwata Tubing and would like opinions about it.

My assumption is that Ishiwata was a less expensive Japanese alternative to Reynolds or Columbus.

How have the frames stood up to the test of time? Are these bikes worthy of a modernization? Perhaps an up grade to Shimano 105 components?

Im a 300 pounder so having the absolutely lightest bike is not a priority with me.

toytech

Excellent stuff, of arguably equal quality to Reynolds or Columbus, just with slightly less snob appeal perhaps.

Bianchigirll 

Ishawata is very good tubing. I am not sure why it is not around any longer. lots of companies used to make some great bikes from it.

JohnDThompson 

Ishiwata 022 is physically identical to Colombus SL tubing in composition and wall thinknesses, but for some reason Ishiwata never acquired the panache of the big European manufacturers or even Tange. I built I lot of frames from Ishiwata 022 while I was at Trek and have no complaints about it. Ishiwata went out of business in the early 1990s, but some former Ishiwata employees managed to get together and buy the tooling. They now sell a modern version of the Ishiwata tubes as Kasei tubing and it is apparently quite popular on the Keirin circuit in Japan. UBI sells Kasei tubing in North America.

Scooper

Ishiwata 022 is a fine tube set, but its butting profile is better suited to lighter weight riders (Ishiwata recommends a 175 pound maximum rider weight for frames built with 022). Manufacturers typically rate the recommended maximum rider weight for their various tube sets conservatively for liability reasons, but it would be difficult to recommend an 022 frame for a 300 pound rider.

I'd suggest you look for a frame built with oversized straight gauge tubing with a minimum of 1mm wall thickness. It might weigh a pound more than the Trek you're looking at.

sailorbenjamin

My Trek 420 is almost 60cm, c-c. 175lbs is pretty light for a guy with that long an inseam.

EjustE

You should check the recommended weights for Columbus SL or SLX and Reynolds 753 and 531 in that chart

https://desperadocycles.com/The_Lowdo...per_Tubing.htm

If the recommended weights were anything more than lawyer talk, everyone over 175lbs would be riding boat anchors (or mountain bikes).

Ishiwata 022 was a pretty heavy duty frame

Scooper

I was just suggesting that someone at the OP's weight might be better off with a frame that's made of tubing with walls thicker than 0.6mm in the non-butted sections (and that would include SL and SLX). With a 300 pound rider, a large frame made of 022 would probably be pretty whippy.

sailorbenjamin

Do you get longer butts with longer tubes? I assume the tubing company sends out a bunch of uncut seat tubes, top tubes etc and the frame builder cuts them to the length needed for the frame size. So the thin part of the tube would be the same length on any bike and the butts would be longer on taller bikes.
But maybe I assume wrong, and maybe longer butts would just increase stress locallization.

EjustE

I glanced past the 300lb rider weight part in the original post... my bad. I agree with you as far as that goes about lightweight frames, but wheels (esp. rear) and spokes would probably be more likely points of failure. I think that any heavier duty steel (even some of the 'lightweights' like Columbus SP, Reynolds 501, Tange #2 and #3, 4130, and Ishi 022) would do fine with the appropriate wheels (at least 38 spokes back)

Scooper

Typically - but not always - the butts are asymmetrical (longer on one end than the other) so the framebuilder ordinarily starts by mitering the short butt end (usually painted so the builder knows which end is the short butt) right at the end of the tube, and then cuts and miters the long butted end to the length required. The reason for the butts, BTW, is to provide thicker tubing at the joint which is the "heat affected zone", or HAZ, where the material's microstructure and mechanical properties are altered by the heat used in brazing or welding. Typically the butts are around 50mm or so. They're not necessarily longer on longer tubes.

Here's what a typical top tube butt profile looks like (this is for Columbus Spirit for lugs, light, for frame sizes 48 to 53cm). Note that the 50mm butt end is marked "Painted End", and the 80mm butt end has a picture of a saw (the end to be cut).

Scooper

He was asking about Ishiwata 022 as a suitable tubeset, so I didn't comment on wheels. Obviously, he'd need a high spoke count conventionally laced (3X or 4X) wheel with a sturdy rim.

As for 022 (or SL) being recommended for a 300 pound rider, we'll have to agree to disagree. SP is heavier (1.0/0.7/1.0), and would probably be OK. It would be interesting to hear from experienced framebuilders about whether they would recommend 022 as a frame material for a 300 pound rider.

EjustE

022 and SL are light years apart The close to SL that Ishiwata came was 015 and maybe 017. 022 was their heavier duty material (think 501 or SP or Aelle - later)

abarth

Are you thinking of the special SL for time trials? The regular SL has the same thickness as the 022 for the 3 main tubes.

Scooper

How are 022 and SL light years apart?

Scooper

When you ignore the marketing hype and look at the chemical composition and mechanical properties of Ishiwata 022 and Columbus SL, they're both 4130 chromium molybdenum alloy and have very similar mechanical properties (tensile strength and yield strength). They also have the same .9/.6/.9 butt profile.

These two pages are from Desperado Cycles:

EjustE

There are a lot more variables than pressure strength to failure. For example: chart number 2 above, clearly shows that Reynolds 753 can take the most punishment of any of those tubes, right? (maybe I am reading this wrong) So, one might suspect that 753 might be rated for a higher weight rider that the others. (Does it make sense?) However, 753 is rated only up to 150 lb weight...

Also... those charts bucket steel from the same makers and assign them the same numbers... However anyone who have ridden bikes made from SL, SLX, and SP; or 019 and 022, the difference in the tubing properties (other than weight, obviously) is apparent...

Scooper

SL and SLX have the same butting (.9/.6/.9), but SLX has five internal spiral ridges to increase rigidity, while SP has thicker walls (1.0/.7/1.0). Ishiwata 019 has .8/.5/.8 butting, while 022 has .9/.6/.9 butting. These account for the differences in ride qualities. The mechanical properties of the material are the same.

753 has identical chemical composition to 531, but is heat treated giving it greater strength so it can be made with thinner walls and consequently lighter. However, because of its heat treating, Reynolds insisted on certifying framebuilders brazing 753 to ensure they weren't overheating the tubing during brazing, weakening the factory heat treating. The lighter weight and thinner wall thickness of 753 make the ride quality different from 531 even though they are chemically identical.

Scooper

Reynolds 531 and 753 Technical Advice:

cycleheimer

Ishiwata 022 was a "value" tubing that was used by Trek. The Trek 412, an early Trek model which was made about 30-years-ago, was at the "starting point" of Trek's product line up. It wouldn't sound right to call it an "entry-level" Trek, since an "entry-level" bike for Trek was more in the "mid-range" when compared to other manufacturers. At 300 pounds, I would be more worried about those flimsy narrow Rigida alloy rims they used on the 412. You would probably want beefier alloy rims and a 40-spoke rear wheel (as used on touring bikes).

JohnDThompson 

Columbus sold their tubing in 3 lengths: A, B and C. "A" length was the shortest; "C" the longest. The butted sections were the same length for all of them (but down tubes and top tubes always have a longer butt at one end so the builder can trim the tube without losing the entire butted section); the middle section of a C set was longer than that of an A set. Other manufacturers also provided different lengths in a similar manner but (AFAIK) never formally named the different lengths as Columbus did.

JohnDThompson 

Not so:

.......................Down tube......Top tube........Seat tube

Columbus SL....0.9/0.6/0.9.....0.9/0.6/0.9.....0.6/0.9
Ishiwata 022....0.9/0.6/0.9.....0.9/0.6/0.9.....0.9/0.6

JohnDThompson 

Ishiwata 022 was Trek's "value tubing in that it cost less than the Reynolds 531 and Columbus SL/SP tubes used on the more expensive frames, but the quality was just as good. In fact, my own experience is that the Ishiwata tubes had a much better surface finish than Reynolds, but not quite as nice as Columbus.

Fletch521

So I am to conclude that Ishiwata 022 is good, just not "cool".
...and worthy of at least a Shimano 105 upgrade with strong wheels The ones on there now are 36 spoke with Winemann rims, (Concaves).

I only paid $50.00 each for the bikes, and I have a spare if I bend one. :-)

Road Fan

First, what other variables are you talking about?

Next, yes, the alloy used in 753 is stronger than that in 531 and the 4130-class alloys. Reynolds used that advantage to make the 753 tubeset thinner-wall than 531C, SL, SLX, SP, and SPX. It's stronger material and a more flexible frame. It does get more complicated when you're trying to assess relative strengths of 531 and 753 tubes, rather than of the materials.

SL, SLX, and SP are made of the same alloy (called Cyclex), and they differ only in wall thickness and interior ribbing for added stiffness. Same for 019 and 022, though I don't know the name of Ishi's in-house alloy. The AISI (American Iron and Steel Institute?) designator 4130 says that these steels and any that are identified as 4130 satisfy the standards of a class of steels called 4130. That also means that the metals are very similar to what is now sold as 4130, by TruTemper and others. Among these sibling products, the metal is very similar, but the dimensions of individual products differ. Therefore the tube performance differs. 4130s are all chromium molybdenum allows, and differ from 531 which is a manganese molybdenum alloy. But the properties of 531 are very similar to the 4130s, though somewhat less strong.