How are these things built? What color do you want it? How much is this going to cost? How your frame is designed How to contact someone here Home page Tube specs Images of frames

Materials

When selecting the type of tubing to use, who manufactures the tubing is really not that important. Columbus, True Temper, Reynolds all make excellent tubing. What matters is knowing the materials characteristics and how to take advantage of them. With a wide variety of tubing available in different diameters, wall thicknesses and tensile strengths it's possible to tune the frames characteristics for the rider. Below is a list of my current favorites with some specs.

True Temper Steel Alloy Information
Alloy Type Tensile Strength Notes
OX-Gold (proprietary alloy)

 170,000 -190,000PSI My favorite for the main triangle. High strength to weight ratio. This is an air hardening alloy like 853 but OX-GOLD can be silver brazed while 853 cannot. True Temper has just relesed a slightly improved version called OX Platinum that comes in different lengths to keep the butted ends from being any longer than they need to be to reduce there finished weight.

Columbus Steel Alloy Information
Alloy Type Tensile Strength Notes
Nivacrom (Nobium-Vanadium Alloy)

{short description of image}		 175,000 PSI Good strength to weight ratio. Commonly known as EL-OS and Neuron.
Focus (Heat Treated - Manganese, Chromium, Molybdenum,Vanaduim Alloy)

{short description of image}		 195,000 PSI The latest tubing from Columbus. Very strong and light. Like the True temper it can be silver brazed with no degradation of the fine grain structure. 1112 grams (about 2.5 Lbs.) for eight tubes cut for a 54cm size frame.

Reynolds Steel Alloy Information
Alloy Type Tensile Strength Notes
531 Seamless (Magnesium Molybdenum alloy)

 100,000-123,000 PSI
Used to be the standard by which all others were jugded. 531 seems to be slowly dissapearing and the newer steels have made it somewhat obsolete for the main triangle anyway. I still prefer the 531 double tapered seat stays and the 531 fork blades though and continue to use them.
725 Seamless (Chrome Molybdenum alloy)

 157,000-186,000 PSI
 Heat treated cro-moly. Makes for good stout chain stays and seat stays for riders wanting a stiffer ride or for heavy riders.