This stood out to me too.
The topic was never brought up directly. But he did mention that both welding and brazing produces joints strong enough (in a bike frame) that the tube breaks before the weld/braze. So there’s that.
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Very interesting review of his “Framework Bicycles” machine (custom wrapped CF tubes glued into CNC-machined aluminium lugs) by Peak Torque (who I rate as one of the best cycling YT channels).
A couple of rather serious issues emerged, one with the unique headset assembly, and one around the seat lug. Watch until the end.
To his credit John (the designer and maker) instantly designed and implemented fixes. Maybe a more tried-and-tested design wouldn’t have had the issues, but that’s the price of innovation.
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I find Peak Torque to be hit and miss. Some of his understanding is good and some not as good. He has some set in stone biases, don’t we all, that cloud his take on things. That binder boss crack is an easy fix really so his idea that the whole frame is toast is disingenuous. It’s obvious why it failed as it did so the fix to the model is pretty straight forward in my opinion.
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How would you fix it? Tricky to weld without melting all the glue and carbon and stuff. To replace the whole lug would mean dissolving the glue that was in there without damaging the tubes.
Framework? Not be confused with Frameworks? Lol
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For this particular frame I’d remove the boss on both sides (grind flush with the outside diamter) and bond a printed or machined deep collar on with integrated bosses and transition bigger radius or none at all..
For the cad model fix I’d remove the horizontal slot and just stick with the normal vertical slot. He probably would have got away woth the horizontal slot with a stress hole in the end like we all put in our vertical slots.
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Thanks. Good ideas. I suspect that almost comically bendy seatpost also contributed to the failure.
In the video it is mentioned that this whole seatpost cluster lug is quite stiff by its design, and I agree.
Trying to make one particular area flexy to act as a seat post binder is maybe a bit of a stretch here, you’ll inevitably end up with areas of stress concentrations.
My fix to the design would be to ditch the binder and try to incorporate some sort of wedge feature
I have no idea how I would fix this broken frame though… It looks pretty terminal to me.
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Hambini now inveighing against Starling as well over some trifle. Starling make steel fillet-brazed single-pivot MTBs in Bristol (and have recently moved a lot of production to Fort in Czechia). Very well made bikes by all accounts.
Hambini sure does know a lot of numbers and lab engineering utopia terms.
So tired of hearing from that [redacted]. A confident tone and a YouTube following of armchair engineers that he’s indoctrinated does not mean he’s got any kind of authority in the space.
Does the surface inside that HT look bad? Yes. It sure could ‘look’ better.
Did the unclean reamer/facer from the previous shit-bagging video make me squirm a bit? Sure did.
Will the headtube work for its intended purpose even with that rough finish? Also yes.
Some commenters like to bring up fatigue failures due to the rough surface.
Does surface finish impact ultimate fatigue life? Yes. But not in a bloody headtube where the metal is at its thickest out of anywhere in the frame, apart from maybe the dropouts. You could probably reuse that same headtube in 10 frames, and the other tubes would still fatigue before the headtube would self-disintegrate due to some reaming marks.
Nah, but let’s over-engineer a BB to the point of pointlessness, sell it as if it will save the entire bike industry while making YouTube videos like some teenager living in grandma’s basement. He can’t even set up a damn studio that looks as professional, ‘serious’, and important as he portrays himself to be.
Holy crap. Just don’t give that guy any attention. He doesn’t deserve it.
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I’ve been drooling over Mikalon.com and their titanium folding bike. Their splitting mechanism and the integrated semi-hydraulic brake coupler are insanely neat and very clicky.
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Stereotypical engineer’s personality, Hambini’s social ineptitude is overcompensated by his technical superiority complex, but that doesn’t mean his engineering prowess is lacking.
I won’t endorse his methods, and I certainly don’t condone a public haranguing (welcome to the modern world of social media) of anyone working hard to earn a legitimate living, but Hambini is doing the cycling world a favor – all of us – pointing out mediocrity, especially what’s presented and sold as top-tier but doesn’t qualify. The best part is that he’s doing it, so nobody else needs to be The One to do it. It’s a privilege when someone with knowledge provides us with a chance to improve. Of course it would be so much better if Hambini could do this with some class, kindness, and grace… But that’s not his schtick, and unfortunately lessons like this come at someone’s expense.
If you want to contribute to “raising the bar” in this trade, then learn from it, every day, every bike, every customer, every opportunity to do better. Encourage others to do the same. Excusing examples of work like this only set us all back. The bike industry-as-a-whole already does more than enough promoting of nonsense.
Agreed, wholeheartedly that, in practice, the referenced poor surface finish is unlikely to adversely affect the bike’s performance or its lifespan. Doesn’t matter… A better surface finish is not difficult with sharp, clean tools and even rudimentary skills to use them. If your cutting tools produce a finish like this, now you know there’s room for improvement, something to strive for, practice, not to excuse.
I remember a time when, if a shop mechanic had reamed a head-tube to look like that, the frame’s builder would have thrown a tantrum over the heinous defacing of his efforts. Now we’re making excuses for when the builder cuts corners and charges a premium? Because it doesn’t really matter?
It does matter. Others have higher standards, and produce them. Raise the price, and turn out work that Hambini truly is unqualified to criticize. Or be a garage hack, that’s ok too, but it’s one or the other.
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Please post a picture of a perfect surface finish on a large (greater than inch) bore that has been hand machined. I have never seen one. I agree that those in question don’t look great, but neither does this one on camera, and it was cut with a sharp, debris-free cutter, plenty of cutting fluid, and even forward pressure. Sincerely, Garage Hack
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Yes @hubub makes some good points but still IMO puts way too much emphasis on something even he/she admits doesn’t affect the frame in any way that matters. Some of us obsess over details that don’t matter and I would never condemn someone for that, being absessive by nature myself. But I don’t impose that obsessiveness on anyone else. Criticizing someonle loudly and publicly and repeatedly for sonething that doesn’t matter is not acceptable in polite society. We shouldn’t make excuses for it.
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Look at any bicycle reaming operation how-to video on Youtube. ALL produce a surface finish like this. Lighting and camera angles make a big difference in how bad/good anything looks.
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Perhaps not….
https://ridewriterepeat.com/2022/01/26/six-bloopers-of-being-a-woman-in-the-cycling-industry/
He is bombastic and despicable. He is not some brave visionary telling a hard truth, but a mean, small bully masquerading as an authority.
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In general, agreed. I never paid much attention to Hambini in the past, largely because the small exposure I’ve had led me to a conclusion similar to yours.
My point (which should have been made much more succinctly) was certainly not to commend Hambini. Rather it was to suggest that, if you’re a business selling a product intended to compete at a premium (commendable), and you open yourself to critique by publicizing your process (also commendable)… If and when someone points out flaws (even if conducted as distastefully as Hambini) perhaps the most productive response is not a counter-attack, but to see the opportunity to improve your offering.
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I have always been a bit cautious showing all of my process because I was bit afraid people would point out my flaws and make fun. Burf showing all his work has been a great pleasure to watch and in my humble opinion a pretty typical framebuilding process, with the results you just get with the material and tools, like the headtube reamer. Could it look a bit better? Maybe… Would it be a functional or easthetic issue? No effing way.
It would be a great loss to all of us here if people like Burf stop making these videos because a wanker like Hambini doesn’t know how steel is different from carbon. I would pay good money to see Hambini weld a headtube without distortion and then ream it to a lathe like surface finish. (Zoomed in with bright lights!)
Nobody has been helped by his video and rant on this subject. The fact that he did a second attempt at Starling just shows he’s getting some nice Youtube cash from engaging both his regular “engineering” crowd and the outraged steel framebuilders. Good thing Starling decided to complety ingnore him!
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Are you saying Hambini is the individual she refers to as the “ringleader”? Do we know this, or are we guessing?
If so then he’s way more despicable than I knew. I had only watched the first quarter of one of his videos once, which was all I could stomach even though it was only about bike frames or whatever (I don’t remember), no misogyny.
Is there any collective action we can take, like reporting him to Youtube?
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