Reynolds tubing presentation
 

Key points (as far as I can remember):

• They're not making 953 any more (they can't afford to buy another 10 tonnes of the stuff in which is the minimum order).
• Or 921 (nobody really wants it except some guy in the audience who makes BMXs).
• But they have a bit of both left so if you want some buy it now.
• Blah blah CO2. Apparently driving 32 miles in a Range Rover creates more CO2 than making a steel bike frame.
• Speaking of Range Rovers, 953 (or rather the alloy they used to make 953 tubes out of) is mainly used in armour plating for prime ministerial cars.
• Frames fail around the head-tube in ISO tests but hardly ever there in the real world.
• Real-world failures are more often around the BB/chainstays (where corrosion and damage may be factors).
• 35% of their sales are their butted Titanium tubes.
• The name "531" was derived from ratios of alloying elements. But the "new" names (525/725/631 etc.) were just invented by marketing.
• Steel is dope.
• Spitfires (the planes which saved the free world, not the sketchy Triumph sports cars) and Jaguar D-Types had 531 in them.
• Tom Simpson's 531 Peugeot wasn't really a Peug.

It's interesting whoever is making the 953 can's spare a bit for them. I ran into something like that when I was buying airplane parts. The spec called out a particular alloy which was made by a single company and the minimum order was $10k USD. Which is $25k usd nowadays. Lots of people thought they could make my part, but they couldn't afford to buy that much material. And storing the excess properly would probably be an issue for most machine shops as well. I had no desire to spend the money and time to go through a qualification process to allow other materials. And there may not have been any that were more available.

I guess it might be because nobody else wants tubes. Although they make tubes they're just butting fatter tubes they buy in. But the 953 alloy is mostly used for armour plating which will be sheets.

I recall that 921 was welded, but I think they get the tubes from a U.S. company. I always wanted a stainless bike, but never enough to pay 3x more for it.

921 was a cold-drawn tube according to the doc I have (I won't post a picture because it says "Confidential"). It says 931 was sometimes welded sometimes seamless. 953 always welded (it's too strong to make cold-drawn seamless). But they never welded these tubes themselves. They buy them in from a mill as welded tubes that are larger diameter and thicker wall than the finished product. Then they do the final stages of butting and drawing to the final dimensions plus heat treatments and things.

Thanks for sharing the vid :thumb:One thing is striking me they didnt speak about the Reynolds 6061 and Reynolds 7005 alumniums wonder if they are still supplying alumnium tubes to some bicycles manufacturers

I never even knew they supplied Aluminium tubes!

I wonder which brands used their tubes , maybe Orange and some othe UK brands but I don't know for sure. They also produced X100 aluminium lithium which is not available at present, due to a lack of availability of raw material

There was also mention of magnesium on there! But all they're really doing with these as far as I can see is selling you a sticker along with a tube they bought from somebody else. With the steel tubes they do the butting and draw to the final dimensions, shape fork blades, and in some cases apply heat treatments (which were very complicated for things like 953).

I'm still curious about 631/853 though. It is probably a standard grade of steel that is used in other applications but I haven't been able to find what that is. Or are they are getting someone to do what I think is called a "custom melt" to make an alloy to their own specifications?

Reynolds 853 and Reynolds 631 are not managanese molybdene alloys unlike 531 and 753, 753 could only be brazed or fillet brazed and necessited a specific certification with silver brazing and the frame builder needed to send a sample of a frame build following the process in order to be Reynolds 753 certified. 631 are main tubes only so chain stays and seat stays are Reynolds 525 Same with 853 which are main butted tubes only so chain stays and seat stays are Reynolds 725 or Reynolds 631. It is not like Dedacciai or Columbus or Kaisei or Tange where you have a complete series of tubing for seat stays , chain stays, fork blades , etc. I am nostalgic of the era of Reynolds from the 80 to the mid 90's
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I have three reynolds road bikes one in 708, one in 753 and on in 731OS as well as a MTB in 631, they are very good bikes. Still is that I don't understand why Reynolds doesn't manufacture a complet series of tubes for 853 and 631 and they did with 731, 753, 708 and 653. 953 is carpenter steel used for missiles and armor and too expensive for the purchase .Branks like Fuji, Kona, GT, Cotic, Jamis, Peugeot, Raleigh, Bianchi and others used Reynolds so I am wondering which manufacturers are using them at the moment for mass produced bikes. Let's not forget that also in the 90's brands like Trek, Gary Fisher, GT, KHS, Diamond Back were amongst the biggest users of True Temper steel.

They're chrome-manganese-molybdenum, and yes, unlike 531/753, they can be TIG welded. Not only that, the welding process is supposed to make them stronger ("air-hardening").

The price-list I have from 2020 (when I made my first Reynolds frame) does have some 853 chainstays in it (but no seatstays). And the same ones appear in the 631 section with the comment "Please check as there will be some availability from stock".

You can also get some very nice 631 or 853 fork blades which I have used on some builds.

In practice heat-treated chainstays (853 or 725) can be a bit annoying if you want to dimple them. But I see no particular reason not to supply the complete set of all stays in 631. Maybe just insufficient demand.

There's really nothing wrong with just using 525. There's quite a lot of product differentiation going on. In theory the idea is that the stronger alloys allow you to use thinner walls, which is basically true. But you can buy 525 in 0.8/0.5/0.8 if you want-- the same as the 631 tubes and all the 853 ones except the "853 pro-team" set. Sure that 525 frame will be a bit weaker, but you will only notice that if you crash it. It will ride just the same. There have been some slightly low-end Reynolds tubes in the past (453, 500, and "CrMo"-- which I think was plain gauge) but basically anything you can get now with a Reynolds sticker on it will be quality tubing. It doesn't matter too much which one.

Since you can put a 631 sticker on it even if you use 525 stays I guess nobody much cares :) I use 631/525 for most of my builds. Although as I've just argued pure 525 is totally fine, 631 doesn't cost a lot more, and maybe the air-hardening is a small benefit.

708! I had to look that one up. Seems it has some funny internal rifling like one of those Columbus tubes (SLX possibly?). 701 presumably heat-treated 501-- in other words essentially the same as what is now called 725?

I had a Reynolds 453 "racing" bike from the late 80s or so until I got hit by a car on it in about 1999. It was double-butted, but an inferior alloy to Cromoly, and quite thick-wall. I also had a Reynolds "CrMo" MTB from about 1996. I think those were plain gauge tubes. I made a new frame and fork for that bike using 631 (and Dedacciai unicrown fork blades). The new frame+fork is 2kg lighter than the original!

As for what manufacturers are using now there was an interesting recent thread here about Kona Sutra frames (made of "Kona double-butted chromoly") failing around where the seat-stays join. Although Reynolds 520 and 525 are themselves just double-butted chromoly, there are details, like the externally butted seat-tube, providing reinforcement in that critical area, that are important. I wonder if this is why the Kona Unit X uses Reynolds 520. Even though anyone can make double-butted CrMo nowadays (I guess since that 1896 patent on butting expired, but also possibly butting machines have got cheaper) a Reynolds (or Columbus, Tange, etc.) sticker is still a guarantee of a certain level of quality in how the process has been done.

520 is made in Taiwan to Reynolds specifications and using a butting machine designed by Reynolds. I have no doubt that it is just as good as 525. But some Taiwanese manufacturers (Wabi for example) are importing 725 from UK to build some of their frames out of. There are plenty of local suppliers of heat-treated Cromoly they could use instead, but I guess it doesn't cost much to ship a few tubes back. There are after all a lot of empty ships going back from the UK to the far east all the time!

I have forgotten that I had also a 2000 Jamis Dragon MTB in Reynolds 853 very good handling, the seat stays and chain stays were made of 631 , my Kona Kilaeua has 631 main tubes, seat stays and chainstays made of 525.
The 708 was an equivalent or something superior to the Columbus TSX https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-m...708-frame.html.
708 - 708 was a tube set in Reynolds' range in the 1990s. It has main tubes with special section. These were not butted, but had 8 flats running along the length of the tube. The rear stays would be 753. The 708 was and is a completely different set of tubing than 725
731OS - Oversize tubeset introduced in 1992 double butted oversized tubes with laterally aligned stiffening ribs on the but sections to maximize stiffness and torsional rigidity. Tubeset: Strength steering tube and fork 802N/mm2, top, down and seat tube 925N/mm2 and rear triangle 1315N/mm2 I have one frame made of it slightly smaller than what I ride but I will make a nice bike of it.
When I had my accident 26 years ago the fork of my peugeot prestige was broken and I replaced it by a time carbon fork since I couldn't find a Reynolds 708 fork