I remember about 10 yrs ago that everything from dragster engines to bike frames were being recruited as candidates for cryogenic treatments that would greatly increase strength, hardness and durability in metals. It sounded like a great idea to treat steel frames and thus reduce the metal/weight needed to make a good rigid frame out of. Maybe this was all a fraud so I'm curious if anyone has ever come across or has knowledge about cryogenic treatments for frames and what were the results?

Cryogenic treatment for steels is used regularly for a number of applications - Daniel Watson at Angelsword treats all his blades this way, and Dean Markley (I think?) guitar strings are treated in exactly the same way. Essentially it works for heat-treatable, phase transforming metals - think steels and titanium alloys, not aluminium or copper ones - by ensuring that all possible thermal transformation has occurred before sending them onto the next stage or thermal treatment.

Mr Watson claims, and demonstrates a doubling in impact energy at the same strength level in S7 steel with his thermal cycling process, but of course the degree of enhancement of mechanical properties is a function of the actual alloy's same potential mechanical properties.

I think the technology has become frozen in time.........

Hi Gentlemen-- I saw your post via Twitter and wanted to clarify that freezing or "Cryogenically Treating" bikes remains an integral part of our business at 300 Below. After being featured on the Discovery Channel, where frozen bikes were part of the episode, we have continued to grow the business to become the world's largest and oldest commercial cryogenics processing company. If you check out our website, you'll find a lot of research data, too, now. We just launched a new version in January of this year with loads of peer-review scientific information if you really want to sink your teeth in.

If there are any questions that you have as they specifically relate to bikes, give the VP (John Koucky) a call since he is the chief metallurgist at 300 Below and will know how the process can help or hurt your bike. Obviously this depends entirely upon what you choose to do.

I hope this helps!

Warm Regards,
Peter J. Paulin, AAMS
Chief Executive Officer
300 Below, Inc.

I know it sounds very good, but isn't 300 Below pushing it a bit ;-) Lord Kelvin might have question about that one...

Dunno about bike frames, but I'm an active competition shooter and the cryo stuff was indeed a big deal there for a while. In the end it died out because no one could show any actual improvement in cryogeniclly treated rifle barrels. Before spending any money on any cryo treated metal anything I'd need to see some pretty solid proof of superiority.

300 below, Falanx, anyone else who cares to respond.

Have any of you any experience with whether cryogenic treatment of titanium alloy tubing modifies its acoustic properties? I am of course referring to CWSR 3Al2.5V as commonly used in bicycle frames.

I ask because I have long wondered whether at least some of what we like to call "ride quality" is actually an acoustic phenomenon. I did some experiments over the last few months with some interesting results regarding the acoustic properties of Ti tubing. The modifications I made to the tubing are difficult and expensive to do - this stuff is a bugger to machine and the tolerances you need to hold on tubing wall thickness are very tight. I know that cryogenic treatment of spring materials has yielded some interesting results so I'm wondering what might happen to a ti bike frame if cryo treated.

For 300 below: is that even practicable? How much would it cost?

Absolute zero is -273.15°C, but −459.67°F.

According to 300 Below's website, "As our name implies, we improve the properties of metal components by freezing them at minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit."

What kind of scientist uses farenheit? ;-)

I know, I did read the site... :-)

I know a guy who runs a car wash. His name is Kelvin?,,,,BD

As far as I know in terms of metallurgy, cryogenic treatment of metals really only benefits some ferritic and martensitic chromium alloys acting as a "refiner" or in other words making the grain structure smaller giving the metal more strength but not necessarily more toughness ( like stainless steel knives ). The whole cryogenic thing of the past seems to be more of a sales gimmick than anything else.

Hi Six jours, We're the founder of commercial cryogenic processing (since 1966) and we've treated over 50,000 gun barrels. We sold that portion of our business ten years ago, but the people running it didn't know what they were doing and did not pay us as we had agreed, so recently we were able to recover our technology and reintegrate it back into the business. Literally thousands of shooters have won matches or significantly improved their shooting scores. We offer an unconditional money back guarantee, always have, and have -- to date -- written fewer than four checks. Two of those barrels that we purchased from their original owners had been completely shot out. We would be happy to offer a challenge to you and nine of your friends. We will pay for your ammo and treat your rifles at no charge. If the barrels decrease we will publish the results. If they increase in accuracy, you pay for the processing and reimburse us for the ammo. Fair deal? Oh, and you get to post your findings, regardless, on the forums here for everyone to see. Shoot ten targets with ten rounds each prior to processing (one for each gun, obviously) and then hang onto those until we ship your barrels back. We will pay return shipping on all ten barrels, which will be included in the cost of reimbursement when you see the results. Shooters, overall, are the most honest bunch of guys (and girls) we deal with. We've never had a bounced check from them in the last fifteen years. We'll need to coordinate this with our employees who handle the receiving, as they won't have any idea that I authorized this unless we get them on the same page. Contact me directly and we'll set it up if you'd like to take me up on my offer.

Kind Regards,
Peter J. Paulin, AAMS
Chief Executive Officer
300 Below, Inc.

Hi Mark,

We are a mil-spec provider and treated the components for the $3.2Bn Cassini space probe. Our equipment is used at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In this case, we have an advanced processor that we use periodically for aerospace components. It's very expensive for us to operate, but we occasionally have extra space to squeeze in something like a bike frame. That's how we'll have to treat this, most likely, so if you don't mind waiting a month or two, please ship it over and I will treat it at no charge. I guess we'll see how sensitive your butt is when you ride it. Haha. As for the guys giving us a hard time, we deal in Fahrenheit so that 99% of the general public can understand what kind of temperatures we operate at. I look forward to seeing someone with an outdoor thermometer at their house that pays tribute to Lord Kelvin. As for my offer to you, you pay for shipping both ways, we'll make sure it's packed properly at no charge, and I'd like access to your research data once you run tests. We've treated titanium alloys in the past with strongly favorable results, but often times the data is sensitive. So, something like this would be a great study if there are favorable results that you allow us to publish, and we'll cite you, too. You can see more research data on our website, most of which is peer-reviewed.

Kind Regards,
Peter J. Paulin, AAMS
Chief Executive Officer
300 Below, Inc.

Dear "Ferrite,"

We've been in business for 40 years, having processed millions of pounds of steel in over seven different industries. The ASM heat treaters handbook is considered the bible of metallurgists; there is a chapter dedicated to cryogenics. Does that tell you anything? There are a lot of doubters, but most don't take the time to do their fact finding. We also treat aluminum and hundreds of other items including plastics, cast materials, and high speed steel. Not everything needs to be ferritic to benefit. We've had some very odd clients, too. I can't release the name, but think about a commercial with a guy and a horse voice that might show up on MTV. It's a product popular all over the world, with all adult ages, especially in the evenings. Anyways, that's one interesting company that has done testing with us. So, not everything has to be metal. But most items are, and they see significant benefits. Please take a look at our website and you'll find some other magazine articles that might point you in the right direction.

Very Respectfully,
Peter J. Paulin, AAMS
Chief Executive Officer
300 Below, Inc.

ASM heat treaters handbook sounds cool but as far as I know, each mill has it's own specs. for heat treating an alloy produced by it's facilities to obtain maximum characteristics making that book worthless except to a scientist working with theories.

I could keep responding to your sales pitch but I'm not interested. I don't know S&%$ but it sounds like the "create a service and convince people they need it" instead of filling the need. anyways good luck!

Hey, this thread is pretty damn cool.

/runs