I cant find the post for the life of me, but someone here was building custom frames using conduit for around $7 a frame. well thats my price range haha, so i was looking for some more information about it, what size to use, best place to buy, etc. im looking to build my first custom frame and any help would be appreciated. thanks
building a frame with conduit??
- Thread starter ratina
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I think there's some threads considering this at http://www.chopperbicycle.com/forums do a search there!
I don't know if this will help. I built this bike with 1inch conduit. It was my first build, so I opted to go for something easy. No bending, just measure and cut. The conduit was 1inch ID, most bikes are 1inch OD, so the conduit slips over the bike frame tubing rather snugly. I used a tig welder, (I should have sandblasted ALL the pieces before welding, not after, live and learn.) Be safe, galvanized steel (conduit) gives off a TOXIC vapor when welding. If you can't dip the tips (conduit) in an acid solution, to neutralize them, at least sand them with 80 grit paper first. Make sure that you have adequate ventilation and you'll be fine. I purchased a CONDUIT BENDER for future builds, don't buy a tube bender, 1 inch conduit won't fit. (I now have a 1 inch tube bender for sale.) I hope this info helps a little. Oh yeah, the bike below cost me less then $90 for EVERYTHING, including paint.
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kingpin said:
Sorry kingpin, I don't have any riding pix. And that would be MRS. beast. There definetly was a learning curve, to ride this bike. With a wheelbase this long you have to get it MOVING quickly! After a few hours of riding it came natural. She is EXTREMELY comfortable, and with your back pushing on the seat you can really use your leg muscles.
Markm said:VicXsaN said:Markm said:you mean whoopsie?
Uhm, yeah! is there a difference but the lost "o"?
just razzin ya... :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
hehe
You never know, since English isn't my first language, which is Swedish, yo can never be sure KOTA said:I don't know if this will help. I built this bike with 1inch conduit. It was my first build, so I opted to go for something easy. No bending, just measure and cut. The conduit was 1inch ID, most bikes are 1inch OD, so the conduit slips over the bike frame tubing rather snugly. I used a tig welder, (I should have sandblasted ALL the pieces before welding, not after, live and learn.) Be safe, galvanized steel (conduit) gives off a TOXIC vapor when welding. If you can't dip the tips (conduit) in an acid solution, to neutralize them, at least sand them with 80 grit paper first. Make sure that you have adequate ventilation and you'll be fine. I purchased a CONDUIT BENDER for future builds, don't buy a tube bender, 1 inch conduit won't fit. (I now have a 1 inch tube bender for sale.) I hope this info helps a little. Oh yeah, the bike below cost me less then $90 for EVERYTHING, including paint.[/img]][/img]
WOW, i had no idea you could even weld conduit.......... that stuff is cheep too!!!! isnt it realy soft tho, i seem to remember conduit benders being the hand type, not much force needed!! thats insane!!!! what type of welding set up do you have to use?
GIMPYBMXER said:KOTA said:I don't know if this will help. I built this bike with 1inch conduit. It was my first build, so I opted to go for something easy. No bending, just measure and cut. The conduit was 1inch ID, most bikes are 1inch OD, so the conduit slips over the bike frame tubing rather snugly. I used a tig welder, (I should have sandblasted ALL the pieces before welding, not after, live and learn.) Be safe, galvanized steel (conduit) gives off a TOXIC vapor when welding. If you can't dip the tips (conduit) in an acid solution, to neutralize them, at least sand them with 80 grit paper first. Make sure that you have adequate ventilation and you'll be fine. I purchased a CONDUIT BENDER for future builds, don't buy a tube bender, 1 inch conduit won't fit. (I now have a 1 inch tube bender for sale.) I hope this info helps a little. Oh yeah, the bike below cost me less then $90 for EVERYTHING, including paint.[/img]][/img]
WOW, i had no idea you could even weld conduit.......... that stuff is cheep too!!!! isnt it realy soft tho, i seem to remember conduit benders being the hand type, not much force needed!! thats insane!!!! what type of welding set up do you have to use?
Hey Kevin, Conduit isn't that soft, It isn't as strong as chrome molly, but is is a lot cheaper! On that particular bike, notice the geometry, A trapezoid inside of a parallelogram, it gives it strength and symmetry. A Tig welder with Argon were used, a Mig welder would have worked also. As far as bending conduit, I found that clamping the bender, (handle pointing to the floor) to a vise on a bench, works well. But it still requires a fair amount of strength to bend. BUT, like I posted before, the vapors can be TOXIC (galvanized steel). If you take adequate precautions, there won't be anything to worry about!
Go for it! Make something! If you don't have to much experience welding, don't worry, that's why they make DISC GRINDERS! :roll:
lol, DISK GRINDERS............ trust me, when i first started doing body work, i got a lot of use out of the .... disk grinder!!!!!!!!! lol, i know ALL ABOUT IT!!!!!! so this is GREAT........... really opens up a lot of possiblities. i could even MAKE a frame for that motor. so how is the conduit as far as painting?!!? does it stick well or what?
I've built a couple of triple tree forks using conduit and all I did was scuff the snot out of them with a sanding block and then primered and painted as usual. Also, grind the area of the conduit before welding 'cuz it has a coating of galvanize and doesn't burn good. The white sooty smoke is bad stuff on your lung too.
sensor said:
lol, YAY.............. i guess its a nesecary evil huh?!!? hahahha, i dont do it for work anymore, but love it none the less.......... my projects get the full treatment, and its a GREAT moneymaker on the weekends
Personally, I wouldn't use conduit. Just seems too cheesy to me. If you have a metal supply store in your city, then go for welded steel tubing.
Chopper bikes certainly don't need to be Chromoly as they typically aren't jumped or stressed out like BMX bikes.
I am currently working with a friend on stretching a 20" Orange County Chopper as it no longer fits a growing 13 year old's legs.
This bike uses 1-3/4" tubing for most of the frame, and an oval section at the bottom. The steel tubing we are using is 16 gauge, which is 0.0598.
Plenty hefty, but again, we are stretching this bike by means of splicing - not replacing entire frame sections.
We ended up making custom "insert sleeves" to reinforce the spliced areas, which worked very well. These are simply longer sections of the same 1-3/4" tubing, split length-wise with a section removed and then rewelded to fit snugly. The "cosmetic" outer sleeve slips over the top. The longer ends of the splice pieces are then slid inside the open tubing ends where we made our frame cuts. Viola! Instant stretch!
We also drilled (4) 3/8" holes around every cut portion of the frame tube so that we could weld the inner splice pieces to the original frame tubes. This method ties everything together nice and strong. To hold everything in relative position for welding, we used sheet metal scews.
It would have been far easier to use insert sleeve material that slips tightly inside the cosmetic outer tube pieces, but the metal supply store was out of this particular size of tubing when we really needed it
The final, stretched and welded frame is then ground, and smoothed with body filler. The tighter you can get your metalwork and welds the less filler that's needed. :wink:
Chopper bikes certainly don't need to be Chromoly as they typically aren't jumped or stressed out like BMX bikes.
I am currently working with a friend on stretching a 20" Orange County Chopper as it no longer fits a growing 13 year old's legs.
This bike uses 1-3/4" tubing for most of the frame, and an oval section at the bottom. The steel tubing we are using is 16 gauge, which is 0.0598.
Plenty hefty, but again, we are stretching this bike by means of splicing - not replacing entire frame sections.
We ended up making custom "insert sleeves" to reinforce the spliced areas, which worked very well. These are simply longer sections of the same 1-3/4" tubing, split length-wise with a section removed and then rewelded to fit snugly. The "cosmetic" outer sleeve slips over the top. The longer ends of the splice pieces are then slid inside the open tubing ends where we made our frame cuts. Viola! Instant stretch!
We also drilled (4) 3/8" holes around every cut portion of the frame tube so that we could weld the inner splice pieces to the original frame tubes. This method ties everything together nice and strong. To hold everything in relative position for welding, we used sheet metal scews.
It would have been far easier to use insert sleeve material that slips tightly inside the cosmetic outer tube pieces, but the metal supply store was out of this particular size of tubing when we really needed it
The final, stretched and welded frame is then ground, and smoothed with body filler. The tighter you can get your metalwork and welds the less filler that's needed. :wink:
