Any reason for high-ten?
 

Is there any purpose for which high-ten or high-carbon frames are better suited than cromoly?

Of course there are situations where high ten or high-carbon would be better. If commuting or errand running or low lever exercise/recreation is your goal, then high ten or high carbon would be perfectly adequate and at prices the average guy, or gal, won't bock at.

If high level performance or ride quality is the issue, then one might be better off seeking a more exotic tubing set, providing that geometry and componentry compliment the rider's intentions.

If you want a stiffer bike made from steel (like for a loaded tourer or cargo bike), thicker walled tubes are generally used, and then the higher strength of the more expensive steels is not necessary.

The ubiquitous British 3 speeds of the "For the Love Of" thread are hi-ten.
Remarkably durable, inexpensive and pleasant to ride in village or town, accept no substitute. :thumb:

-Bandera

You will burn more calories

When a high five just won't cut it.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/56...0318e4d1_m.png

You have to break out the big guns. The High Ten.

http://1000awesomethings.files.wordp...in-the-sky.jpg

Oh wait your asking about frame tubing. It's more...economical and sounds better then saying your bike is made from fence posts.

Beater bike. Another plus for cheap tube bikes is that there is a lot of overlap in bike boom hi-ten frames with no derailleur hanger or cable stops. Could be useful if a clean looking SS is what you are after.

They're cheaper and don't ding as easily as thinner tubes. Perfect for beaters and city bikes. I have a hi-ten fixed-gear and it's lovely. Indestructible, low-maintenance, fun to ride.

How else would Wallyworld differentiate there BSOs? :D

Industrial bikes, like a Worksman, perhaps the last USA made mass production bikes.

...this ^^^ is also my understanding. The whole point of the more exotic alloy steels is to draw them thinner to save some weight, possibly to make the frame more lively.

When cost is a defining characteristic, high-ten/high carbon steel can save a few bucks per frame.

I can understand main tubesets and but can the stays and fork tubes be drawn thin enough to make a significant weight difference?

About 2 years ago when may wife and I were still "going out", we each bought entry his/her mtbs

her's was a Trek with cromo mains with hi-ten fork and stays, mine on the other hand was all cromo (Fisher)

The bike were the same size but the Fisher was much lighter by at least 3 pounds. I always thought it was mostly weight of lighter parts

how much less could you shave off btwn the two frames, I never stripped them to compare, one is overseas now, so no way to test

High tensile steel alloys are not high carbon ' Most steel contains less than 0.35 percent carbon. To put this in perspective, keep in mind that's 35/100 of 1 percent.'

I always assumed the Hi-Ten label was there to let us know that the tubes were at least better than (something else, maybe low-ten, or maybe cast iron).

Hi-Ten is short for high tensile strength steel. High is a relative word. It is highly strong as compared with something else, but what? Jello, I suppose. Basically, high means low, since there is no basis for comparison.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d7...wataTubing.jpg
....better alloy steel tubing is drawn to these specs. ^^^

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d7...ps8a88b059.jpg

...This ^^^ was the only example that came up on a Google search for Hi ten tubing thickness. I don't think they bother to butt the stays, so for the stay thicknesses, use the 1.2 figure.


There's a noticeable weight difference in bare frames made from the different materials, stripped and held in the hand. Really, there is. and most of the Hi ten you run into is not butted at all.

it's a little heavy. it can still make for a decent bike.

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8638/...66ffe793_b.jpg

Yes, good point. ^

I am remembering these details from my time in engineering school at NC State:

A seemingly very small percentage of carbon or alloying elements can go a looong way in altering iron's structure.

"High carbon" might designate a hardened steel where parts are roasted at high temperature while buried in carbon powder, as with bearing cones.

Tubing, otoh, is cold-worked to some degree during manufacture, so too much carbon or alloying elements will reduce the metal's ductility, preventing as much cold-work processing (such as butting , thinning, bulging, ovalizing, crimping and flaring) from being done.

Smaller/finer grain structure (smaller crystals with smaller slip planes) defines hardness, tensile strength and fatigue resistance characteristics, and can be achieved in several ways:

1) Faster cooling causes crystals to initiate in a much greater number of locations within the metal, so crystals grow only to much smaller sizes during cooling before reaching the boundaries of neighboring growing crystals. Contrarily, slower cooling grows fewer but larger crystals. Large crystals are softer, and their larger slip planes generate higher fatigue stresses at their boundaries.

2) Carbon molecules interrupt the growth of crystal slip planes during cooling, so these slip planes are smaller and cold-working potential is limited by the resulting reductions of yield (slip) along these crystal planes.

3) Alloying elements help to better disperse any given amount of carbon into a greater number of sites, and produces much better strength characteristics versus larger nodules of carbon dispersed in plain iron (as in nodular iron). Alloying elements themselves can also interrupt the growth of crystal slip planes, which of course also limits the metal's ductility (the amount of cold-work deformity permissible before ruptures are initiated).

Cold-forging physically crunches down the larger iron crystals in steel while maintaining a very high level of 3D compressive force that inhibits the formation of voids/occlusions in the resulting finer-grained structure. The reduction in size of "slippery planes" makes for a more interlocked series of structures which resist slip movement and thus reduce yield and fatigue tendencies under service conditions.

Growth and presence of large crystals in metals is the enemy of high hardness, tensile strength and yield strength, but does allow for a greater degree and larger number of post-cooling cold-work processes as is needed to cold-draw and mandrel-work the metal into useful shapes. The cold work processes themselves then reduce crystal size and thus increase hardness and strength.

"Directional grain" resulting from forging/coldworking does not imply long, continuous crystals, but rather a directional pattern to the now-smaller crystals, which can enhance or detract from directional strength variations in the metal.

AMEN to that! :thumb:

That "road-hugging weight" smooths the ride. :thumb:

Not all Hi-Ten bikes are heavy. Case in point is my trusty '75 Fuji S-10S. At 26.1 pounds for a 23" frame bike, it was relatively light in its day. This in the era of 35- to 40-pound boom bikes like the Schwinn Continental/Suburban or typical department store bikes. A real high-end 'lightweight' back then was 21-22 pounds.

What 'real' weight savings is there in the frame/fork between hi-ten and the more exotic butted steel tubing? Maybe three pounds at most, probably closer to two pounds. The rest is components. Ten years later, the mid-grade Miyata 'Semi-pro' series 310/710/910 was still 24-25 pounds and they had double-butted CrMo...

All these answers you all giving are about why high-ten is quite often acceptable, the OP was asking about situations where high-ten would be better. Apart from the stiffness-due-to-tube-wall-thickness one, I don't think any of your answers satisfy the OPs question. And even then, you could, if you really wanted to, make thicker walled tubing out of cro-mo*, so even then, hi-ten is not really any better.

[/troll]

*and yes, I realize one the advantages of cro-mo is you can make thinner tubing from it, thereby saving weight.

OK, Lighter doesn't always mean better. I like the way the S-10S soaks up the bumps in the road, making for a smooth ride. Good enough? Of course that may also be the long-ish wheelbase... ;) Happy now? :D

Yes, this was exactly what I was asking.

High-ten was cheaper. It was mainly featured on low-priced bikes. CrMo is today seen as cheep, but back in the '60's until lately it was a more premium product. Also being stronger it allowed thinner tubing walls which in turn allowed a better-riding frame, which was a usually marketed as a feature of more costly frames that were built up with better parts.

It doesn't make too much sense to evaluate high-ten against the best that is or was out there. But from a product design point of view (utility, durability, performance AND cost) it could make a superior product at a price point. I believe if Raleigh for example could have beaten the Paramount product offerings using high-ten, they would have tried to.

Another example: the top Lexus sports car (FFS?) is carbon fiber. Is it a better material than steel? Yes, it has some properties that offer better performance than steel. Is it always a better choice for Toyota to make a car? No, because for any other car in the Toyota stable, price is a significant concern. And that constraint rules out carbon fiber. But it's hard to argue that steel is inherently better than C for a performance or racing car body.