The purpose of the earlier post on this subject was to try and ascertain the interest in the frame building community in constructing their own carbon fibre frames using tube to tube construction. I have only dabbled in adding carbon to my steel frames, but the techniques for building carbon tube to tube frames appears to be much the same, in as much as they can be cut and mitred and assembled and glued in a standard frame building jig. I have been put off by the subsequent wrapping of the joints to finish off and strengthen the build, feeling this has to be done properly. So far I have not found any books on the subject and there seems to be one teaching course in the USA, in Tucson, Arizona (https://www.framebuildingschool.com/carbon).
I was, however, contacted by a third party frame building enthusiast who has built carbon and carbon / titanium lugged frames in a restricted environment and is keen to offer some help and instruction in using the complementary tube sets he has had made. The Tubing is Toray T700 unidirectional.
David Protheroe
David only claims to be a hobby frame builder like myself but can still source carbon tubing in all relevant frame sizes and also has his own mandrel for chain-stays. He can, if needed, also source compatible dropouts, brake bridges etc in titanium. There are some pictures of his supplies below. Currently the chain-stay design will only accommodate 25 mm tyres, though a different design could be made available. It may be possible to get some alternatives from manufacturers such as Dedacciai, though I have not investigated this.
With regard to the build process he has tried vacuum bagging and used a home made oven, though found this very time and labour intensive. Apparently it is possible to mitre and glue the frames as one would a steel bike, followed by wrapping the joints with carbon and then wrap with silicone tape for compression. Subsequent smoothing of the joints is then required.
He can potentially source lugs for the tubing but these would apparently be quite expensive. He can also supply a more eco-friendly Flax Tubing, though it is wrapped around a thin Carbon layer.
Anybody interested in David’s products can contact him by email:
01stimpressions@googlemail.com
2 thoughts on “Carbon Fibre Framebuilding – Any Interest? – UPDATE 2”
I would love to learn more about this topic! Its really hard to find Information about it. For example Festka, they started in a garage and now they are big.
I can only echo your comment Kevin.