# True Temper customers, what tubing are you using now?



## golden boy (Oct 29, 2008)

Like many others in the US, I have sourced True Temper tubes whenever possible. Now that they're out of the game, where have you turned for your tubing needs? I'm curious if there is anything approaching a consensus for an alternative to TT.


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## Eric Malcolm (Dec 18, 2011)

I'll be bluntly honest here - Brand loyalty is rubbish. There, said it.
I have used all kinds of CrMo tubes and they all seem the same to me. I will qualify by saying that I use brazing techniques only. When I make a frame that is non-standard to that of conventional 'tube-set' type, I have to use what I can resourcefully find, whether plain guage or 'shaped' or this dia with whatever butt length/wall thickness, such situations create a miss-match. Therefore, in this scenario, they all work the same. You measure, cut, braze, finish, assemble and ride. None of my recent frames qualify to put the revered Manufacturers brand sticker on them. Meaningless really.

Sorry if that offends anyone out there, but once you work outside the norm, there becomes other challenges that make this question redundant, move on. TT is no more. Quite like Columbus but not loyal to it.

Eric


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## Erichimedes (Jul 30, 2010)

I've been really happy with what I've worked with from Vari-Wall. They've mostly got their air-hardening steel (like OX Plat.), but they're planning on releasing some plain cro-mo tubing as well, which will be a nice lower price alternative. From talking to them at NAHBS, it sounds like they want to offer a comprehensive tubing line eventually.

https://shop.vari-wall.com/


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## Walt (Jan 23, 2004)

I stocked up on the Super Therm and OX Platinum stuff so I'm set for at least a few years. For basic cromoly stuff, it doesn't really matter much who you use. Nova/Fairing is the cheapest, Reynolds/Deda are more expensive and the same basic thing, but you might like the butt profiles they offer better.

As Eric said, when all is said and done, they're all just steel tubes. Use the ones that make the most sense for the frame you want to build. I have tubing from pretty much every manufacturer in stock in my gigantic tube rack.

-Walt


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## golden boy (Oct 29, 2008)

Thanks for the replies. I certainly wasn't loyal to True Temper myself. Like Walt said, I use whatever tube from whatever manufacturer that meets my needs.

Question regarding OX Plat and similar air-hardening alloys: Is it true that these are better suited to TIG welding than brazing? I'm braze-only at this point.


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## Eric Malcolm (Dec 18, 2011)

I tend to see the Air-hardening steels as more suited to niche bikes as they are usually ultra thin walled tubes and therefore less resistant to fall damage, being easily dented. So the end use leans more to the soft MTB end or more commonly the Road bike sector. I would braze this material without concerns as the temperatures do not reach those used by the TIG method.

Thats how I view this material. It seems to be more heat tolerant than earlier attempts at ultra thin wall tubing. I feel that having additives (eg: Niobium) added to the steel to become more dense in the granular structure when heated to be more useful.

Eric


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## Feldybikes (Feb 17, 2004)

golden boy said:


> Question regarding OX Plat and similar air-hardening alloys: Is it true that these are better suited to TIG welding than brazing? I'm braze-only at this point.


AFAIK, air-hardening alloys (853, OX Plat, etc) are more suited for TIG in that you see some additional strength vs. a non-air-hardening alloys when TIG welding, but there's nothing that makes them worse for brazing than regular or heat-treat chromoly. Well, other than mitering can be considerably harder. So, I'm not sure if that answers your question.

It is also my understanding that S3, OX Platinum, and Supertherm are--well, were  --all the same alloy but are just different butting profiles/applications. With 1/0.7/1mm profiles, Supertherm is what I like to use for beefy mountain bikes. It looks like Variwall is offering an as wide or wider range of butt profiles than True Temper did, so hopefully those end up working nicely.

Since the tensile stength is higher, the air-hardened alloys should be more dent resistant than standard chromoly, even with the same butt profiles, so also a bonus for mountain bikes.


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## golden boy (Oct 29, 2008)

I checked the specs on my last frame and I used Verus, heat-treated Verus and Platinum OX for the main triangle. Top and down tubes are .8/.5/.8, seat tube is .9/.6 with a DIY chromoly sleeve up top. This is my trail hardtail. No concerns about it holding up, but then I'm 50 and I avoid crashing so I'm not really putting it to the test.


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## zerodish (Jun 17, 2006)

Catoregon is sitting on the true temper tubing used by Burley when they went out of the tandem business. I tried to buy some 10 years ago and even visited the shop. They may be out of business I can't get their web site to load. http://www.catoregon.org/


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## GrayJay (May 16, 2011)

These cats?
http://www.catoregon.org/diy/


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