Part C1152 at Ceeway seems to be the best option I have seen. I haven't bought a set yet but the long plug-in section seems ideal. The angle is the biggest problem but it is usually pretty easy to select bamboo with a kink at a node so that you don't actually need the angle in the metal.

Another option is to buy four of the carbon seatstay adapters from Nova and drill a set of the aluminum road dropouts to bolt on. The shape looks like it would interface perfectly.

I'm using aluminum for the head tube and bottom bracket and steel for the dropouts. Do I need to wrap theese with fiberglass before using carbon tow? If so, should I apply the fiberglass before even tacking the frame together with epoxy ?

Yes, you need to cover them with glass first. You also need to etch the Aluminum to ensure a strong, lasting bond.
You will probably find it easier to tack the frame first and then cover the exposed metal with glass. You can then use the glass as a base structural layer by extending it onto the frame. A few pieces of glass extending from the down tube between the chainstays and up the back of the seattube and a few more from the downtube and split to overlap onto the chainstays will tie that area together. It is easiest to buy a few rolls of fibrerglass tape for this application. The finished edges of tape reduce the problem of the glass weave coming undone.
The exception may be the dropouts. If you insert them into the bamboo then the carbon wrap will only reinforce the bamboo without actually contacting the metal.
You of course have the option of sleeving everything into bamboo first which will eliminate the necessity of the insulating layer.
Your lugs can look a bit bulky if you go that route unless you use the thinnest walled bamboo.

Canaboo, can you explain what you mean by sleeving and how you did this?

Old Goat, what style of jig have you built or decided that you want to build? I've been looking at this instructable https://www.instructables.com/id/Almo...rame-building/ and plan on building an alternate form that he has at the end which allows tacking of the whole front triangle.

This seems like mostly a carbon fiber frame, not a bamboo frame.

I have a big cast iron table saw that has perfectly square edges. I plan to clamp some square aluminum tubing, that I have around from another project, to the table to create a vertical surface. I'm going to build the front triangle flat on top of a full size drawing and then stand it upright to build the rear triangle. This is just a preliminary plan and probably will change as the project moves into the "hands on" stage. I was a mechanic for 30 years before I retired so I "think" better with my hands than with my head!

By sleeving I just mean inserting the metal tube snugly into the bamboo tube and gluing it in position.
I'm not sure how this would be viewed as a carbon bike when the carbon is merely a lug reinforcement.

According to the frame testing Renovo has done and is shown on their website, all of their tested bikes are stiffer than the Calfee Carbon bike, which, having ridden both, I guarantee is stiffer than his bamboo.

Would be interested to see the weight comparisons. Probably easy to make something stiffer if it's significantly heavier...

I finally found some bamboo that was of high enough quality to build my frame. I just finished tacling the whole thing together and tomorrow I'll start wrapping with fiberglass and then on to the tow wrapping. I have a couple of questions about the wrapping process.
How many layers of the carbon toe should I be using ? If I use old inner tubes to compress the wrapped areas should I be leaving gaps between the sections of the tubes to allow the excess resin to squeeze out?

Old goat, I ran across this in my research about the number of plies needed. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/rinard/carbonqa.htm


I am planning a bamboo build(when the weather warms up). I am going to start with some lugs from an old Reflex MTB. It is a bonded aluminum frame. The lugs will be inserted into the bamboo then wrapped in the same fashion as other bamboo builds. I don't have pictures of my frame but is a link.
https://www.mombat.org/Reflex.htm
https://www.mombat.org/1990_Reflex_Limited.htm

Goat,

https://www.bmeres.com/carbonframe1.htm
From his website, "On the top and down tubes and seat tube, there are 9 layers; on the chain stay and seat stay there are 11 layers. The high stress areas were covered with additional 6-8 layers."

Renovo wooden frames weigh from 3.5 to 4.5 pounds. I took this photo at the 2008 NAHBS in Portland where Renovo had a complete bike hanging from a scale. It weighed about 17.5 pounds ready to ride.

I spent an hour this morning wrapping the seat tube/top tube/ seatstay joint area with 6k carbon tow.
This is a MESSY job! I cut the tow into 2 ft long sections so that they would be easier to handle then I soaked the tow in epoxy and started wrapping. The first few sections went on nice and smooth but when I had to start making a figure 8 around the frame tubes it was impossable to be real neat. I got 2 layers on and it started to get ugly so I called it a day and wrapped the whole mess with cut up sections of inner tubes streached tightly. I'll see how it looks when I unwrap it tomorrow. I'm using Aeropoxy with 60 min hardener but the set up time is really slow in my 60 degree workshop. Tomorrow I'm planning on sanding off any epoxy ridges and adding a couple of more layers. Wish me luck!!!

^^^
Yep, composite bikes are not made of bamboo, carbon, flax, and the like. They are really made of rubber gloves.

Good luck.
Making them pretty comes from the finishing.
Don't get discouraged.

You ain't kidding about the rubber gloves! I'm on the second box of 50. After I unwrapped the inner tubes I found that the carbon tow actually laid down pretty nice. I sanded down the rough spots and added a couple of more layers of carbon then wrapped the whole thing in inner tubes again. I have been adding two layers of carbom tow each time and then sanding the hardened carbon between each application. I plan on doing a final wrapping with hemp string as a cosmetic layer. I'll post some pictures after I'm convinced that the frame is presentable.

He guys,

Just joined the forum and stumbled upon this thread.
I am not going to build a bamboo frame myself, but me and my buddy are probably going to purchase two bamboo frames from craig calfee, build them up with touring parts and go on a big tour. Cycle from Alaska to Argentina on bamboo bikes. Gonna follow this thread, might be interesting for me concerning maintenance and repair stuff...

I'd be trying to build my own frame. The extra 3000 saved could go a long way to help out on a trip. Of course if you have that sort of excess cash, lucky you.

Aah.. Well, we're not going to buy Calfees designer bamboo bikes from his workshop in the US (I wish). No, we are getting them from Ghana, where Calfee set up a 'franchise' workshop. There he taught locals to build bamboo bikes for personal use as well as export to US/EU. He put some quality/integrity tests in place to ensure top notch frames for bearable prices. Around 650 dollars gives you a 'touring' frame. I would have loved to build my own bamboo bike, but quality bamboo is hard to come by in The Netherlands. In addition, I am no engineer and rather work a week or two in a fast food joint to get the 650 bucks then spend months on 1, acquiring the right materials. 2, studying up on (bamboo) frame building and 3 , actually building and testing the bike.

I finally have my frame ready to assemble into a bike. I'm going to build it as a single speed so that I can test it for strenth. If it passes the test I will strip it down and do some fine finishing and mount a decent drivetrain.

That's a damn fine looking first frame, OG.

Nice..

The frame is ready to test but the weather is not cooperating so it got a preliminary test on the trainer!

That is the coolest F*&^ING thing I have ever seen! Bamboo bike frame? That sounds stupid but they look cooler than cool. WTF? That bamboo Mt bike frame is sick!

Took the bike on a 20 mile shakedown ride today. Nothing cracked,broke, or made any unusual noises! The thing rides and fits me great!