Bike Frame Material

[Backwards Bob]

I am new and I am wondering is there a certain type of tubing that is used the most for frame building or altering an old frame? I had to stretch an old Murray frame for a project I'm working on. I scavenged a piece of 1' conduit. It bent nice and I figure if I sand blast the galvanization off it will take the power coating. BUT I'm hoping this won't fold up if I hit a pothole or worse yet break and I get a mouthful of blacktop! The bike I'm building is not an off-road bike just a cruiser.

Thanks for any info!

 

[sicnick]

I use 16 gauge (.065" wall) tubing
can go thinner and lose some weight but I beat them hard

 

[iRide Custom Bicycles]

I agree with Nick. I would steer away from conduit if at all possible.

 

[bigredddaddy]

I've used conduit on a few bike builds. In fact, the 2 choppers I've built both had the tripple trees made from EMT aka conduit. If these forks can hold up, your frame is good to go!

I don't know about the powdercoating, but I scuffed up the galvanize and primed and painted and it turned out great.

 

[Backwards Bob]

I use 16 gauge (.065" wall) tubing
can go thinner and lose some weight but I beat them hard

Is this something that the Home Depot has? If not where could I find that?

 

[deorman]

Commercial steel suppliers often have suitable stock. They may or may not have some scrap pieces, if not you'd probably have to buy some 10 foot or larger piece, and if you can't cut it down yourself, they'll charge for that also. Cheap bikes found in the trash may be your best bet, depending on where you live.

 

[Backwards Bob]

Thanks a lot for the help! I really appreciate the information!

 

[Uncle Stretch]

I think EMT is strong stuff . Regular conduit is kinda iffy on frame builds. Most of the powder coaters sandblast anything first as it has to be really clean for their coating to stick.
The Metal places here sell in 20' lengths and they cut it once for free. I havent found anybody that will sell shorther than that.

 

[Von Stans]

there is lots of guys who use electrical conduit and haven't had ne problems as long as you have good penetrating welds just remember if you are welding conduit to were a respiratory and weld in a nice open area because of the fumes from the galvanized tubing........

 

[Pinche]

I just take a wire wheel to galv cause it's not the metal it's just a coating. Otherwise if you weld just ontop of the galv. coating it gives off a really groovy yellowish/greenish smoke. It's just the same as welding any other metal, just get down to bare clean metal and you'll be good.

 

[XC204]

You can remove the glv. by dipping the to be welded ends in Muriatic acid (about $5 a gal at menards) do it outside though. if you need to do a longer tube make a trough out of lumber and 6mil poly sheet plastic. The coating comes off quick. Reyse the acid until it doesent work any more. When you buy the EMT at Men. HD or the like look at the tube surfac closely som are dimpliy looking some very smooth. The one in my phot was not as smooth as I would have Liked.

By xc204, shot with FinePix S5000 at 2009-12-22

 

[Loki182]

I'm as new at this bike building thing as anyone, but I have been building my chopper project out of nothing but conduit tubing, and so far it seems rock solid. I can't promise that it is the best possible thing to work with but it is definately cheap and easy to find. I would like to think however that if I was just modifying an existing frame and not building one from scratch I would probably just be using pieces of tubing from old scrap bikes instead.

 

[Von Stans]

using old scrap pieces of materials from old bikes works great.......when i built this bit i used a seat post as the 8 inch stretch in the top tube and on the lower tube i used steal from an old cart i score from the home depot where i work....