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forum
Recommendations please. Titanium frame repair.
I mentioned it on today's live blog.
I have cracked the frame of my titanium framed Good Bike. High end late 90s XC MTB.
Can anyone please recommend a genius artisan craftsperson who can weld a cracked titanium frame?
I will post a few pictures, if nothing else but to solicit some sympathy, when the forum post goes up.
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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35 comments
I had my frame repaired by Pat Banks at Limit Fabrications.
It was a crack in the chainstay weld and not really on the same scale as yours so no idea if it's fixable, but he did a great job on mine.
Cheers lodger.
So much for titanium lasting forever........ Or maybe that's just marketing......
That doesn't look good, but then I'm no expert! Enigma Bikes who buils and sell titanium bikes / frames used to do repairs to no Enigma frames. Don't know if they still do. Based in Hailsham.
Enigma did a grand job doing some work on my non-Enigma titanium frame. I'd suggest that contacting them would be worthwhile. Their customer service was terrific as well.
Yikes! Out of curiosity, do you have a bike packing bag or rack cantilevered off the seat post? That's not meant to be an accusation! It's just that I've always looked at them and wondered 🤔 what they do for the frame.
No, and I never used the seat post in the bike workstand either.
Given the extent of cracking on the photos, I would question the advisability of even trying to repair this frame. It could have been badly designed with too much stress concentrated there or the material could have been dodgy. Would never feel safe riding something that cracked so badly even if someone offered to repair it.
Given the extent of the cracking I'm inclined to agree. The fact that it's spread from the weld to the monostay is worrying.
I'm wondering if that frame was one of the Raleigh Special Products range that was made out of rolled and seam welded Ti sheet? Would explain the crack propagation.
See attached.
Patch it with marmalade?
A mate had the rear dropouts fail on his Planet-X - dodgy design if you ask me as the whole weight of the bike went through the weld to the dropout, which stuck out behind the frame - they have changed the design.
He found a local welder somewhere in the West Midlands. Basically, Titanium needs to be welded in an oxygen-free environment so it's a bit specialised how it is done, but if you can find a welder who can do it, and there are plenty around, the fact it's a bike makes no odds. I don't think it cost massive amounts, £100 rings a bell.
That frame is absolute toast. Even if you had it expensively repaired, who knows what other part is waiting to fail ? As the frame is so old it won't conform to current parts standards so you're probably looking at a whole new bike, realistically, but would that be a disaster?
You're over egging the standards bit. Relatively easy to obtain new nos or lightly used parts still. And the standards are still current mostly.
There's a whole scene out there on Retrobike.co.uk
I still have a shed full of stuff from my Retrobike days.
You're not going to get 11 speed + electronic shifting and tubeless without a fight but you could still build up a perfectly good 9x3 triple with square taper cranks and 26" wheels.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Anyway, looking at the state of that frame the components might not be in such good shape either. Sometimes you just have to let go?
That's where I'm at Secret, full XTR that to 20 years to complete, ceramic 26 inch wheels, and a Chris King headset (with ti parts) that is not hidden and requires a straight 1 1/8 steerer. Either fixing it, which as soon as I noticed the cracks in the top tube, I considered to be unlikely, but I have to try, or something in ti or good steel of late 90s vintage that will accept the parts.
I cannot justify the many thousands that would get me anywhere near the equivalent in a modern version. And I don't really fancy electronic shifting...
Would something like a new Surly Bridge Club frameset be suitable? It's got old school dropouts, can run 26"s and (I think) has a straight steerer. Probably a bit of a downgrade from your frame though and it's disc only
I'd love to build one as I've never felt the need to upgrade from square taper 3x8 and 26" wheels. Can only dream of building it with XTR, Hope and Chris King parts like yours although I'm temped by those cable outers.
Nokons. They were properly bling when new, but they rot in our climate. I have a fresh set in black, and was about to start changing them, the liner has gone somewhere on the rear brake.
My Ultimate Commuter is a Surly Ogre, and apart from a weakness in the offside chain stay and dropout weld, two broken after two years each, she is a beauty.
The troll still had canti bosses, but the fork is not suspension adjusted.
That's disappointing to hear. I'm hoping eventually to build a bomb proof Surly commuter as I'm always expecting my Aluminium bikes to fail one day, especially the 20yo one.
Did a quick EBay. Used to have a Eock Lobster Team Ti which are one of the nicer Ti frames for the price. Holy mother of god look at this abomination.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165864990973?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-12763...
My mate Mike had a steel rock lobster (strangely, his was also the glued dynatech) which became Gahn's on Mike's unfortunate passing , and I borrowed for a few years so I could visit the better half in hospital in Ipswich. Lovely thing. XT thumbies, but awful elastomer forks, good ones but elastomers. Very restrictive visiting hours, and if I took the bus, I'd get back after the morning one, have half an hour in her flat then have to start travelling back for the afternoon one.
I'm sorry for your loss
Go shopping on retrobike?
My 23-year old Merlin Ti is virtually road only, so it still looks immaculate- only thing wrong with it is the rim brakes.
The view from the top.
I reckon it started here.
I don't like the look of the shimmed seatpost. Is it a 1 or 2 part shim? If the former shouldn't the split be at the same point as the split in the frame?
Also, how long is the shim and how much seatpost have you got stuck out? I guess it's all academic really as it's proper knackered.
From the right.
From the left.
There is a little bit of uncracked metal left.
Good luck with that!
The only place I could find in the UK doing titanium repairs is Vernon Barker Cycles in Sheffield. Though their website presently says: "Apologies but we are currently not taking aluminium or titanium frame repairs and alterations. We hope to resume in the near future."
Might be worth contacting them, as it's possible they haven't changed their home page. If nothing else, they might be able to say whether the repair is physically possible.
I'd guess any repair - if it is possible, which I'd question given the scale - would be prohibitively expensive.
All the best.
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