Bill_B

I have what I'm pretty sure is a Monty 219 (it looks right and is steel) with curved blade forks, currently being rebuilt with new paint (powdercoat). I'll post piccies when its done.

cool replies, I'm more looking for a discussion than advice, I've just gone from a steel to aluminium XC bike and the alu frame lacks the compliant feel of steel, I'm only really starting to play with trials so do not have the experience to translate that to trials riding. I know Aluminium frames will be cheaper to produce than a good steel frame and being stiff and light will make them popular, especially with the very slim low frame designs you see now. anyone else have any thoughts (I did try searching first but found nothing).

What do people think is the better material for frames and why? Aluminium is lighter and stiffer but more brittle (hence cracks) steel is heavier (although thinner tubing means frame shouldn't be far of Alu weight) but possibly more robust and has a bit of spring/bounce to it Steel is much easier to work and build IMHO (Maybe just my aluminium welding that is poor ) Aluminium doesn't rust What are your thoughts people?

There is a Leeson in the classifieds, £150+P&P may be more than you want to spend but it hasn't shifted despite multiple bumps so make him an offer??

If its aluminium make sure you etch prime it otherwise you will have problems making the paint stick

White and shiny with matte black hardware IMHO looks very cool in classy kind of way Satin black with chrome/polished is similar but more stealthy Olive green/grey/brown sort of colours can look good without screaming 'look at me' Or go for something a bit more flash, I'm powder coating my Monty in black with a holographic flake (when the powder turns up from the states ) should be a bit different, don;t know if it will be a bit much really, but if it is I'll go over it in translucent black to tone the flake down a bit.

Hmmm, if its purely a pimpy thing I'll leave it until I have some cash to burn. I assumes they would be stiffer and offer more 'feel' to the brakes, as braided hoses do in a car, I guess the pressures are just not high enough. Thanks for the honest opinions

Paid £30 to have my frame shotblasted ad £30 to get it powdercoated, pics will be up when its done.

I'm thinking of upgrading the hoses on my XC bike, they are only Shimano Deore calipers, but I'm wondering if better quality braided hose will improve the feel of the brakes. I assume someone must be running them on their maggies or similar? did it make a noticable difference over the std nylon/poly plastic hose that comes as standard? Thanks

Those crank bros 5050s do look nice, I'll have a closer look at them. I put V8s on the girlfriends bike and I'm not keen on them are the V12s the same physical size? I'll look out for the revells

I'm looking for some pedals, I have a pair of Atomlab trailkings on my XC bike with seem pretty big. I have wide size 13 feet and often find my feet overhang the edge of the pedals, if the ball of my little toe/foot joint is not solidly on the pedal platform I don't feel so confident. so what pedals are out there that are as wide as or wider than the Atomlabs (I also have some outlands which are a bit narrow). ta

CycleWorks in Burpham? I'll no doubt see you in there sometime being relieved of cash

Thanks guys, yes I've been looking at custom frames, Iolo and Leeson were two frames with hidden pipework and both look so much tidyer for it. I just though using solid lines would be less flexible than braided hose and potentially give a more solid/predictable feeling brake lever. I wouldn't dream of doing this on an aluminium frame, but then I wouldn't trust my lardy arse on a alu frame either. I'll have a look into M6 and 6 hydraulic fittings, as for the syringe thing, I would fit brakes that I couldn't bleed through by adding oil in the caliper and beeling it through the lines and through the caliper. I'm pretty sure I can get 1.5ish mm copper pipe, just need to check if I can get fittings on to it (they may need soldering) and a suitable method of attaching them to the frame.

were they alu or steel frames? I think of a steel frame with the correct strengthening gussets it would be do-able, on an Alu frame I think you waould be asking for trouble.

No I'm thinking about internal brakelines in the frame, I've seen it done before by: a) drilling holes in the frame tube and threading nylon brake hose through, then spending hours trying to get it out of a small hole in the other end of the frame, and drilling holes in the frame tubes and brazing internal small dia tubes in to simply thread the nylon lines through I'm thinking of the next step and fitting internal copper hard lines in the frame terminated at the frame surface and just using short braded lines from the lever to the frame (probably just under the top tube) and then a short braded line from the seat stay to the caliper, everything inbetween would be a single hard copper of stainless steel line. this should marginally reduce weight, keep brake lines out of harms way and most importantly look bloody cool and make for a very tidy frame. I have also though of using hard lines between the caliper and frame as they do not move relative to each other, but a hard line would not take kindly to knocks and unless very short and out of the way would easily get damaged and cause problems. thoughts people?

What size fittings and bore pipes are used in cycle brakes, I could measure my shimano discs on my XC bike but its at home and I'm thinking on work time thanks Bill.

that is fine, Thanks Bill.

If anyone knows this guy can you kick him up the arse and ask him to get my bits in the post please? could be he's been run over by a bus or something etc or someones stolen all his local postboxes etc. I just want to know what is going on. ta

Have you considered getting it powder coated instead of paint, I found a local place that would do a frame for £30, if you want a simple colour you will get a very good hardwearing finish, and its not that expensive compared to primer and paint.

looks nice IMHO (similar design to what I would do if I could, especially with respect to the seatstays location on the top tube), yes your welds are a bit rough (almost as bad as some of my stuff ) but a bit of careful work with a grinder and you could tidy those up. A good choice of paint finish could also hide the rougher parts (IMHO matt black and some brighter graphics to draw the eye away from the welds). do the cranks hit the chainstays at both sides? could you grind away a section of chainstay and plate it?

T45 is used in Aviation quite a bit (TVR and Lotus use it too) if you want plain gauge tubing, you can get nice teardrop profile tubing too. Google quickly throws up a couple of suppliers that you could call.

Come on then, where is it???? I've been trying to think of something innovative you could do with this, instead of 'just' designing and building your own frame, is there anything you can do that no one else has to make it a truly better and NEW frame design. I'm sure you will do VERY well in the project if you can show some real ingenuity with the design. So my contribution, in order to make the rear end as short as possible, have you thought about trying to design it with an integrated bottom bracket? a bottom bracket only needs to be fat atthe ends where the bearings are, the middle is just a tube for the axle to run through. How about instead of a bottom bracket 'shell' for the BB to fit into, you make the BB shell into the outer of the actual bottom bracket. you may have to design your own BB with sealed bearings etc, but I think it could easily lose you a good few mm off the back of the bike allowing you to shorten the rear end. Providing you design it with replaceable bearings it should be fine and IMHO an innovation. you can still fatten it out around the bearing area to accept good big bearings and give plenty of surface for the chainstays to be brazed onto. but it can all be slimmed down in the middle of the axle to get the tyre right upto the BB. the bottom bracket would need to be turned up on a lathe to get the right shape etc but I think its all feasable. good idea or bad idea?? EDIT: just seen you have edited your first post with new pics, I like it BUT, I would try a single 'seat tube' from the BB up to the top tube before it splits to the seat stays, keep your two 'seatpost' pieces you have now but bring them down at a more horizontal angle to meet the new seat post not the BB. I think this would be stronger without adding much weight and give you a little more clearance for the rear wheel. EDITTED EDIT: what type of brakes are you intending to use, Disc, Rim, Vee? and what size wheels will it have?

I've worked out how to get the TryAll apart the cover thing was not on tight and it does look a little dirty/gritty in there. Can I strip and service it? I assume I need to lubricate/grease the bearings and their surfaces but not the pawl/ratchet section. any more advice? EDIT: Also I got a metal ring with a step on it, sort of like a spacer/locator ringthat would fit over the threads, what is that for???

Also I don't think you can get 853 in small enough diameter for chainstays etc so you may have to use 4130 or another type of Reynolds. Have you considered using box section for the rear stays, IMHO it looks quite cool and you would get nice big area to braze to the BB, it would also be very stiff for your brakes.

I can't help thinking your seat tubes should be angled back a little more the whole area between the top tube and seatstays somehow looks weak, it may be fine with the steel plate brazed in or even just as it is, I would personally try and go for more triangulation as it makes things very strong. the twin seat tubes look cool for sure but I think a single traditional seat tube type affair would be stronger and maybe take the seatstays right up to the top tube brazing them to both the top tube and seat post. Or even take the seat stays to the top tube and just bring your seat tubes up to join the stays as you have there but less abrupt bends near where the stays join the top tube, I imagine their is a lot of stress in that area. You can then use the fact the seat stays are brazed onto the top tube as a way of running the cables (rear brake and gears but I assume this is going to be single speed, but the dropouts look quite wide apart) inside the tubes, makes for a really tidy looking frame. Please bear in mind what I have said is based purely on how it 'looks' I havn't tried any real analysis of your design. I like it though