The ultimate Chopper from conduit?...

[Buzz Saw]

This might be a fun project for any age...

Amazing what can be done with electrical conduit. Not just for wires anymore!

Cheers.

[Weatherlawyer]

more technical use than thin mild steel rolled from washing machine scrap and stolen manhole covers: Bicycle frames take a great deal of strain and anyone putting tension on a road vehicle with the mechanical abilities of solder, is likely to end up in hospital for a very long time.

Bike frames might look fairly thin at the ends of their respective tubes but the section thickens toward the middle. Lengths of it are available from specialist suppliers. It is made to specific engineering standards that control the dimensions of every piece sold.

[Geoff Norfolk]

[mike ring]

"Geoff Norfolk" wrote in news:lbfif.7994$ [e-mail]:

Me too, maybe it was a typo.

IIRC it was to withstand brazing- not, as remember it, welding, at the joints

mike

[Andrew Gabriel]

Having seen the effects on a friend of mine when his very expensive bicycle snapped whilst cycling through Watford, I can say you really don't want that to happen to you...

[Rob Morley]

Indeed.

Welding and/or brazing - it depends on the alloy and heat treatment used for the tube. Arc welding is quicker and hotter/more localised than gas welding/brazing, so the thermal considerations of the joint design are different. Reynolds 753 was silver-soldered and you had to pass a test (solder tubes and stays into a bottom-bracket, which Reynolds would then pull apart) to make sure you were getting enough heat into the joint to flow the solder properly, without heating the tubes enough to weaken them significantly. Cheap crap steel frames use thick heavy soft steel, so arc welding isn't the problem that it can be with cold-drawn (and thus work-hardened) tubes in exotic alloys (which are often heat-treated). Properly welded crappo frames will usually bend gradually rather than failing catastrophically - Pashley used to get away with this in their tandem and trike frames, which are pretty highly stressed.