Finally, an idea that could solve the security concerns of leaving an unlocked bike leaned against a rack! (ampco bronze pry bar required for removal, not included)
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BTR + Hambini reaming drama
I donāt know what BTR did to Hambini, but the guy is out for blood and honestly it makes both of them look bad. Hopefully there is something to be learned and discussed here. The youtube comments are already a disasterā¦
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The comments are pretty brutal indeed. Iām going to go inspect and oil my cutting tools.
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Can you imagine what a frame would cost if his standards were adopted?! Iāve heard BTR bikes ride well and donāt break.
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The internet is so lame. I am genuinely grateful for this forum and the couple of pleasant online communities I lurk on. My brief rabbit hole of reading those YouTube comments was plenty.
People should take pride in their work and craftsmanship but itās bikes folks, freeze framing another small businessās work and speculating on the sharpness of tools is insanely small.
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Yeah heās made awesome bikes for a long time!
I had second thoughts about even posting here because I donāt want to drag this community into it. But I ultimately thought it might be good for others to know about and potentially provide support for a fellow builder.
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Itās quite interesting to see Hambini videos in cases where you have some experience of the subject.
Heās made other videos where he rants about āpoor weldingā which were way off. He had an aluminium frame he had cut up and was complaining that the weld hadnāt penetrated all the way to the root and bubbled up on the other side. But you donāt necessarily need that on that kind of joint: there was enough of a fillet on the outside that you would have had a strong joint. Itās really just about whether there is enough material there.
In this case that weld looks fine to me as well. Yes there is some unevenness in the colour (and heās obviously used a stainless rod, but this is quite a popular choice). Itās a bike frame not a nuclear reactor. I donāt think itās going to fail there.
As for the reaming, people in the comments are saying he turned the tool backwards when he pulled it out, demonstrating what a muppet he is. I had another look at the video and I donāt think he does. Just an optical illusion if thatās what you want to see because youāre trying to be negative.
I donāt know why he was reaming before welding out that little gusset tube. But it probably wonāt make much difference.
Yes he could have cleaned his tools. It wonāt make much difference. They have clearances for chips to go into. If you clean it, it will soon pick up more chips from the tube youāre doing. Yes I do clean mine, but I donāt think itās a huge deal.
The precise roundness of HTs really doesnāt matter so much anyway. This is why Reynolds supply them the right size already (so you donāt have to ream them at all). The average diameter will be the same and the bearings will press in fine (I have used Reynolds HTs on most of my builds, I love them). Yes that will theoretically squash the bearings a tiny bit. But itās a steering joint, not a bottom bracket. Youāre preloading it anyway. It doesnāt make any difference. That little scratch that Hambini was first complaining about certainly makes zero difference.
He also mentioned āsugaringā behind the weld. But this is a CrMo frame and that was was a perfectly normal weld on the inside. A problem on stainless but not on CrMo and most people donāt back-purge (although some do and thatās fine, but it isnāt necessary).
The potential problem for BTR here though is that boutique frames are partly sold on this vision of absolute hand-made perfectionism. And I know some of you on here really do have much higher standards than that. I have total respect for that. But at the same time it isnāt strictly necessary in the sense that if you make a frame thatās properly aligned and decently joined out of the same materials it will ride the same and last forever anyway.
A frame made by Maxway or Fort probably is actually technically higher quality than one made in Somerset by a few guys, because people doing mass-production have a ridiculous amount of experience of mitring or welding a particular joint, or of reaming, or of anything else they do for 8h a day, every day. But then itās āmass-producedā. Individually hand-made has more of an aura about it, even if the actual precision is probably a bit lower. How good is good enough? Based on BTRās original video I would call that more than good enough, and itās unfortunate for him that Hambini has decided to pick on him, pretty much at random as far as I can see.
I believe Hambiniās bottom brackets are made by hand, by him, to an utterly ludicrous level of precision, far more than you need for any bicycle component. Peak Torque made a video about this. Thatās absolutely fine. Itās a great product with a great reputation. But he shouldnāt randomly attack people making frames, where he has less understanding of the process, and is not a direct competitor.
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Holy moly! The end of an era, Calvin from Park tool is retiring.
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The whole thing sad and utterly pointless.
When you load up your gun with qualifications and/or experience, and look through the sights with a ābad faithā filter you can make your shots do loop-de-loops and still do damage.
Both parties should step back and get on with doing more productive things.
But itās particularly crappy that heās chasing after Burf, so personally. Burf a such a genuine guy and has been so open with his process to anyone that cared to ask, and in return he has copped more than his fair share of ābad luckā. Theyād probably be good mates if they just met in person before all this childish insta nonsense.
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Oh how much I just absolutely despise Hambini and his method of gaining popularity and hence profit by roasting others (people and companies) with his wannabe aerospace engineering BS.
Not everything is a piece of particle physics experimentation equipment. Engineering is about efficient use of ressources, not about how anal you can make something.
Most of his followers just giggle about his frequent and childish use of fecal language.
Absolutely despicable.
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I think it was good when he called out some of the very expensive branded CF frames that had poor BB-shell tolerances. You have to take his claims about what tolerance is necessary with a bit of salt, but some of those did look bad, like a bottom bracket wouldnāt even fit properly in some cases. For a bicycle that costs as much as a small car that isnāt acceptable.
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I agree- the article I read was much more measured and professional and brings up good points. Wildly different from this BS. Which is strange
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Other than the 
itās so cliche for fresh engineering grads. A couple years of supervised drudgery in a junior role is the standard cure before theyāre useful. Until then donāt let them do anything important without review or theyāll, oh I dunno, spec out a bottom bracket with dead sharp inside corners andā¦ oh never mind.
Sometimes engaging means volunteering to be someoneās therapist or coping outlet. All I can offer are best wishes that someday heāll figure himself out.
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It does happen in all branches of engineering.
I see that everyday in software engineering, I think I was the same at the start of my career as well.
Once one start working in the real world, you understand pretty quickly that most of the world works very differently from what you learned on books.
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The same can be said for all manner of things. Classic naivety. Just this time the naivety somehow jumped ahead of experience and has been given a platform (celebrated by others equally naive) from where it/ he has turned around and pissed all over experience.
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Probably essentially true, but stillā¦ What heās doing and especially how he is doing it, is the polar opposite of constructive criticism.
Inflating his armchair engineering prowess, then turning other peopleās work (as bad as it may be) into laughing stock by using (ha ha) fecal/sexualized language and then capitalizing on his equally immature following. Wow. Slow clap. Iām impressed.
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If big-box manufacturers are cutting corners while charging premium prices that should be called out, and it is good to have alternatives to GCN. But he doesnāt know about framebuilding and heās picked a fight with the wrong guy. BTR are a small company making quality frames by hand in the UK and charging reasonable prices for them. He should be on their side.
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As if on cue, GCN posted a video about framebuilding. The title gave me hives so i didnāt watch. Welding VS Brazing - Which Is Best For Bikes Frames?
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It was actually an ok video. They spoke with Tom Sturdy and he gave easy for the average punter information to understand. Hopefully more GCN consumers will absorb the data
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Yes a good video (although everyone on here is likely to already know everything they said). Spoiler alert they didnāt claim either welding or brazing was better 