Stainless vs Chromo
 

I have been looking at the 2013 Salsa Vaya in stainless steel. I'm not familiar with the qualities of stainless, with the exception of being able to buff out scratches. What are you really paying for when choosing the higher price stainless over chromoly steel?

I think you're paying for the shiny factor on a bike that doesn't need painted. I'd think cromoly would be lighter, since the tube walls could be thinner, but I don't know enough about the many types of stainless steel out there to say this with any certainty. (i.e. I could be dead wrong on this)

Edit: If it's Reynold's 953 steel, I am dead wrong about it...

Not being a metalergist I don't have much of an opinion except for an understanding that stainless tends to be expensive and hard to work with. But, it obviously works well for kitchen sinks and pots and pans...

I went to the Salsa site where there was lengthy writeup on the Vaya and its history. Much of that history evolved around packing it for travel and when they got to the stainless Vaya Travel they said:

"From there, we add S&S Machine stainless steel couplers to allow it to fit into an airline-legal case, we add Alternator dropouts for the versatility and ease of packing mentioned above, and we build it using quadruple butted stainless steel. We chose stainless as a result of discussions about durability both inside the case, and in use in the varying environments of planet Earth. Stainless is very strong, reasonably light, non-corrosive, and you can easily buff out any scratches as a result of case travel. The fork was also changed to have an IS disc brake mount for ease of caliper removal and re-installation, and we chose a simple decal for the graphics, so that it can also be simply replaced if it is damaged during transport."

From that I take it that the stainless is mostly there for cosmetic reasons to make it easier to repair scratches and the like.

Like George- I think stainless is for cosmetic reasons. Many years ago I was Making Kart Frames and we did build a Frame out of Stainless and to the same tube dimensions of the normal Tubing we used. Weight was a bit higher but the handling was way off. It also suffered tube breaks in places that normally break but a lot earlier in the life of the frame.

Admittedly not a fair trial as this frame was punished to the limit and it was not bike use. I dare say that with development we could have got the handling better- stopped the tubes breaking and got the weight down but we stayed with what we knew and understood.

have to know the specifics, there are a number of alloys of each,

generally the high nickel content to make it shiny, is softer
than the alloy mix that makes up 4130.


though stainless filler wire makes a good TIG joint, and is used a Lot.

Don't know metals much myself, but I order a lot of them and the phrase 'stainless steel' covers a huge variety of different alloys so it is impossible to know anything about strength or weight without knowing what kind of stainless you're dealing with.

My perspective, as the owner of a painted non-stainless-steel bike (True Temper OX air-hardened steel) with S&S couplers that I travel with quite a lot (10 round trip flights in the past three years):

Judging by the writeup above, the purpose of the stainless steel in this particular case is for cosmetics and convenience. When I pack my steel Rodriguez fixie for airline travel, after I uncouple the frame (which takes less than a minute), I need to spend the next half hour wrapping each frame tube and fork blade in the velcro-backed neoprene packing material. If you get a coupled frame built at R+E Cycles in Seattle, they include the custom-cut packing material as well as an instruction session in packing the bike. Wrapping the tubes in this material is the most time-consuming part of packng, and if you don't do it, your frame is guaranteed to have all sorts of scratches by the end of the trip. Jeez, it'll even have scratches if you just close the travel box on it!

So if you build the frame out of stainless steel, you can avoid having to wrap the tubes, which will save you a good half hour, so you can probably pack the bike in about fifteen minutes. And even if the tubes get scratched up, you can just buff out the scratches. Cosmetics and convenience.

That said, back in the 70's, the Swedish bicycle company Crescent built a stainless steel model (no couplers, though - I don't think they'd been invented yet). I knew a guy who bought one. It was unpainted when I first saw it. I saw it again a few months later, and it was still unpainted, but it had all sorts of dents in the tubing. The material was pretty soft.

Luis

Stainless generally is tough but not rigid or hard. Good alloy steel might have a tensile of 200000 PSI and a hardness of RC55 to 60. Good stainless might be 100000 PSI and a hardness of RC35 to 40.

It's hard to drill and cut. Welding can cause cracks.

Bottom line, what makes stainless hard is chrome. Most ss alloys are about 18% chrome. But this is mixed with about 8% nickel which makes it tough but also soft.

Chrome Molly tubing will have no nickel in it; it's replaced with Molybdenum. It has all the hardness from chrome and the moly keeps it from being brittle and improves stability after welding.

Whoever thought up the name "Molybdenum" should be strung up by their thumbs! We need some vowels between them thar consonants!

+1 :roflmao2:

Not to get this thread off-track -- but Aluminum is the same: there are a large number of alloys and each can be modified with different heat treating methods. But, Trek won't tell you: instead they simply post stuff like "Alpha Gold Aluminum". I would love to know what that is -- especially as my butt is riding on it and depending on it everytime I ride my hybrid.

Stainless is sold primarily as a "poor man's titanium" with the primary benefits being corrosion resistance, that paint is optional (which is nice in a city or utility bike), and the ride is familiar to those who ride other steels.

To the best of my knowledge, there are three stainless tubesets commonly used in bikes: Reynolds 953, KVA and Columbus XCr.

There are many differences between the three as a result of different alloying, tubing sizes, butting, and wall thickness. Some is even said to rust. And some is magnetic. There's a brief discussion of some of the differences between them here.

Since there are many different chromoly tubesets as well, it's not really appropriate to make a blanket statement about what you're paying for. "It depends on which chromoly and which stainless" is the closest you'll get in any answer that's reasonably truthful and knowledgeable.

Ride-wise, it's probably better to compare stainless to the high-strength air-hardening tubes like Reynolds 853 and True Temper OSX. (I ride an 853 bike and don't particularly care for the springiness. I think it adds a kick to bumps that I don't get on my other bikes. Other people think it's the cat's meow. YMMV.)

But most people buy for the corrosion resistance. Some still paint it--they just don't want to have to treat it with Framesaver every few years.

EDIT:

I *can* tell you that the second-hand Litespeed I bought a couple of years ago has become my favorite knockaround bike since I don't have to worry about paint. I run errands in the city with it because locking to signposts won't hurt it. I take it on rides with my ride partner since all I have to do it throw it in the back of his pickup. No fussing with racks. Hell, it even looks better with a patina of dirt on it. In short, I can treat it like a bike.

If you're considering stainless for that sort of use, I say go for it. A bike that doesn't require paint is a liberating experience.

I've been riding a Waterford RS-22 built with Reynolds 953 for over five years (delivery was May, 2007) and am still on my honeymoon. It was my 65th birthday present.

953 is very strong and very dent resistant, even with a wall thickness as thin as 0.3mm. My 61cm frame weighs 3.6 pounds. I don't abuse it, but I don't baby it, either. It has yet to collect its first dent, and I put a couple of thousand miles a year on it in all kinds of weather. It's nice to finish a ride in the rain, wipe it down with a terrycloth towel, and not worry about rust. It still looks like it did the day I got it. The fork is chrome plated 531 since Reynolds wasn't producing 953 fork blades (I use Weigle's Frame Saver in the fork blades).

Carpenter Technology makes the 953 alloy for Reynolds; it's Carpenter Custom 455 alloy. 953 has an Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS) of 1750-2050 MPa, a Yield Strength of 1500-1900 MPa, Elongation of 14%, Hardness of 44 HRC, and Stiffness Modulus (E) of 200 GPa.

I'm not sure I'd call it "poor man's titanium"... ;)

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d7...rd953RS-22.jpg

Here's the chemistry of Reynolds 953.

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

And "poor man's stainless" is chrome plating.

Scooper: That's a nice looking bike!

I'm a little jealous: I got a bike a couple months ago and, although I am very pleased with what it does and how it does it, it ain't pretty. It ain't pretty at all... I can't believe Trek left a $1,200 bike leave their factory still dressed in primer grey! Stainlesss would have looked so much better. :(
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=281515

I sent a note to Salsa inquiring as to what stainless was being used. No response after 3 days. I think I'm moving away from the stainless. The bike also comes standard with S&S couplers, which I have no need for. The extra weight for these installed is "significant," whatever that means. It also comes with Alternator Dropouts on rear. This is to provide the ability to easily switch to single speed, should you have trouble with drive train. Can't imagine myself converting to single speed in the middle of a tour. My LBS does say that the ride quality is excellent. I say that is all in the eyes of the beholder, but I don't think ride quality would be noticably better than my Sam Hillborne.

S&S stainless steel Bicycle Torque Couplings for a frame using OS tubing (28.6mm top tube, 31.7mm down tube) would add 0.6 pounds (275 grams) to the weight of the bike. That's not much of a weight penalty for the flexibility it provides in carrying along a full size 700c wheel bike in a 26" x 26" x 10" S&S hard case that meets the 62 linear inches for airline checked baggage without incurring oversize baggage surcharges.

Salsa tech support says the weight of the stainless steel Vaya travel bike with S&S BTCs is lighter than the chromoly version without S&S BTCs.

My carbon fiber bike doesn't rust either.......just saying

+1

There is a fundamental difference between metal and carbon frames. Metals rings, carbon dampens.

I assume a lot of the wide variety of opinions here on stainless, is because stainless steel alloys for bikes has not been around long.
And also b/c the 3 main stainless steel alloy for bikes have distinctly different make-ups and pricing.

While "convenience (low maintenance)" and "cosmetics" are big benefits of stainless steel, they are not the only benefits.
(An added cosmetic benefit is if you like the fillet brazed look you can do that in SS, but not titanium)

You can't overlook superior strength and hardness over CrMo: These steels are not the stuff we use for spoons and knives.
If you look at strength to weight ratio Reynolds 953 (the priciest SS) is higher than 6/4 titanium and 2.5x higher than Reynolds 525 (regular Chromoly steel). ( http://reynoldstechnology.biz/assets...ys_extract.pdf )

The newer martensitic, air hardenable KVA MS2 is not as strong as Reynolds (but less of a pain for builders to work with). The ultimate tensile strength is about the same as R853, but is up to 42 HRC. Based on available tubesets, you can build a KVA frame as lighter than the lightest R853 frames. The general consensus from builders on the net is that KVA still has the feel of steel people like, but is snappier. (http://roadbikeaction.com/New-Releas...ess-Steel.html )
I have no data, but I venture to say stainless is more dent resistant than CrMo of the same diameter and commonly used oversized titanium tubes used on bikes.

I've seen SS frames cheaper and more expensive than titanium. That and the fact that it requires a truly talented builder to work with the stuff leads me to also agree you can't call it the poor man's titanium. And you kind of insult the engineers who developed these materials if you lump this new class of frame materials in with chromoly steel and kitchen knives.http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=310288http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=310289

S&S couplers will add between $500 and $700 to the cost of the frame. I had them put on my wife's custom built frame; and even though we travel a lot with our bikes, I am ambivalent about their value.

The mid-70s vintage Bridgestone/Kabuki "Submariner" bicycle also used stainless steel tubes, with aluminum lugs that were cast around the joints. And we (Trek) had Reynolds custom draw some stainless tube sets for prototypes in the early 1980s. N.B. these were not the modern 953 alloy Reynolds produces today. One of the prototypes got a spread in Bicycling magazine when it was displayed at the trade shows.

And Rene Herse's "Demountable" models were using couplers (but not stainless steel) way back in the 1940s.

Reynolds 953 is a remarkable material. What you are paying for is the ability to make a very strong and fairly stiff frame in steel without much of a weight penalty over carbon/titanium.

I'm no metallurgist. However, I am having a frame built for me at the moment and had a lengthy conversation with the framebuilder about the relative merits of stainless vs reynolds 853 or Columbus Spirit. His opinion was that I as a big rider (6'3", 195lbs) who might be racing the bike would need the oversize tubing in stainless in order to get the stiffness and durability I want. I prefer the aesthetics of the narrower tubes So we went with columbus spirit. Had I been a smaller rider we'd have come to a different conclusion.

It isn't just about cosmetics.

[QUOTE=curdog;14898703]I have been looking at the 2013 Salsa Vaya in stainless steel. I'm not familiar with the qualities of stainless, with the exception of being able to buff out scratches. What are you really paying for when choosing the higher price stainless over chromoly steel?[/QUOTE]

Hopefully something you want. Why you want it is the real question, and there are lots of reasons you might want it and lots of reasons you might not want it. All that said, it's nice to have choices even if no one else appreciates your choice.