posted by norman leong on july 28, 1997 at 02:02:03:
in reply to: re: litespeed 6/4 ti posted by michel godin on july 25, 1997 at 11:40:59:
: : Somewhere else on this website, Merlin says that currently, 6/4 titanium is not suited for bicycle building purpose. To be more specific, they said that it is incredibly hard (or not yet possible) to make seamless tubes from the stuff and that is why they haven't approached it yet. My question is, are frames like the litespeed 6/4 ti tellico or other 6/4 frames superior to merlin's material (material-wise), or are their 6/4 frames not yet refined enough to meet merlin's criteria
In another similar article in Bicyclist, a custom
frame builder (Bill Holland) built a frame from
6/4 Ti, but that's because one of his neighboring
companies actually manufactures the tubes; the
real question is "what's the availability of SEAMLESS
6/4 Ti, and how much does it cost?"
If I'm reading Merlin right, they don't want to
build bikes from tubes that have been rolled from
a sheet, then welded, and you probably wouldn't
want to buy one that was/is.
Norman