As I am Czech also…Brand name zoceli means ‘made of steel’.
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Please interview Fitz Cycles in Santa Rosa!
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Look, folks from The Steel Bicycle Project of IBERG have made a nice tube selection tool
Tube Tool, a numerical software toolkit to compare the mechanical behaviour of steel bicycle frames. The project included both academic and industrial partners to create a userfriendly toolkit to help frame builders select tubes. Tube Tool is an interactive MS-Excel spreadsheet that can be used to compare the stiffness and load capacity of standard tubes under standard loading conditions. Tube Tool comes with a set of instructions and supporting documentation and is freely available [to download Tube Tool click here]. We welcome any feedback on this for future development!
cool stuff!
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Firefly tour!
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Doesn’t work for me in LibreOffice, I get multiple “BASIC syntax error. Unexpected symbol” errors. I guess this means I would have to buy Excel to use this?
(For those who don’t know, LibreOffice is a free open-source alternative to MS Office that is supposed to be able to open Office docs, run macros etc. Compatibility is not 100% though.)
I’m hoping that I just did something wrong. Otherwise, oh well, sounds cool but I won’t be giving MS any more of my money, they’ve screwed me too many times.
Try using Google Sheets.
I find that to be very compatible with Excel. And it’s free.
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Thanks, but I’m skeptical. This spreadsheet requires access to supporting files like the database of tubes. All need to be in known folders or the references won’t work. Does Google let you upload a tree of folders to use with a spreadsheet? Dunno, never used Sheets. Don’t quote me out of context! 
@JMY This bike turned out Insane!!!
I’m especially curious how you did the internal routing. Did you use the Baum/Woods method of a bonded in 3D Ti plug?
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Cheers!
Yeah, the internal routing is done very similar to how I’ve heard they do it. Bonded plug with a slot and integrated thread for the top cap.
I have some refinement to do to the final execution, and then lab testing of course.
Surprisingly, we did not need to use any internal routing kits or special tricks to get the hoses to where they needed to go. Not even through the bars. That was a great win!
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I thought the discussion around frame stiffness fascinating! Starting around 9:45
“We have such a good library of stiffnesses that we can pick and choose from.”
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Bike of the day
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Cotic dropping a steel fs ebike. Glad to see Cy putting function over form and sticking to dialing in ride feel vs stuffing battery into a giant aluminum tube for looks.
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Thanks! I’m so pumped to have this bike posted on PB!
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One more for Whit
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Looks like a cool idea…
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Wow, great find. That is so cool! It could change the framebuilding game! A machine like that takes up so much less space than our current equipment.
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That setup is very cool to see in action. I’m realizing that I could do this with my 4-axis CNC mill, though my X and Y travels aren’t long enough to do both ends of the tube without repositioning.
When I’ve thought about making something like this before I’ve worried about the square cuts on the ears of the tube. Is that a problem in practice? I’m new to TIG (I’ve always fillet or lug brazed my bikes) and I file down the ears after mitering, but not to square like the endmill would cut it.
Building it is probably a distraction from TIG practice, but it’s a fun looking project.
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Really interesting interview with builder creating bike frames by carbon tube bonded into aluminum lugs. What do you think about your headset solution?
Video from Danish frame builder Mads Hulsroy smashing out a production run of stainless bottle cages. Love the little jigs and it’s really well filmed too!
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