7kg MTB machined from single piece of aluminium

[Andrew_Culture]

I thought I would share an engineering news article with you. I'm always interested to read about innovation in bike building. A lot of it seems to be in the road bike arena, but this idea of a MTB frame being machined from a single lump of aluminium interests me. I've not seen it outside of consumer items like the MacBook.

I'm not too sure about the shape of the frame, I'm yet to see anyone successfully deviate from the classic twin triangle design.

There are pictures here - https://clevermachinery.com/bicycle-milled-solid-stock/

 

[MichaelW2]

It is a neat technology demonstrator, and probably makes a good showpiece at trade fairs.

 

[Drago]

Nice, but not the strongest means of manufacture.

 

[PhilDawson8270]

The problem with milling from a solid billet is the lack of control of the grain structure, well primarily the orientation of the grains.

I wouldn't be riding something manufactured in that method, but it sure does look good.

 

[Crackle]

165 to 7Kg, that's pretty wasteful. And they could at least have put the seat on straight.

 

[TheDoctor]

The swarf will be weighed in, I suspect. At 60p a kilo, I would.
So much aluminium is recycled that it can't be long before we don't need to mine it any more.

 

[Ian H]

Some at least of aluminium frame manufacturers put the finished frames in a jig into an annealing oven to 'cook' the structure and remove stresses from welding. I wonder whether that process would work with a milled frame. Who is a metallurgist here?

 

[PhilDawson8270]

Some at least of aluminium frame manufacturers put the finished frames in a jig into an annealing oven to 'cook' the structure and remove stresses from welding. I wonder whether that process would work with a milled frame. Who is a metallurgist here?

The jig, and ovens are usually done to remove the stress from welding as you say. That wouldn't be an issue with milling, as the heat generated is nowhere close to what it would need to be to cause issues.

 

[Ian H]

The jig, and ovens are usually done to remove the stress from welding as you say. That wouldn't be an issue with milling, as the heat generated is nowhere close to what it would need to be to cause issues.

I was wondering whether annealing might alter the structure of the metal – though, thinking about it, possibly not in this case.

 

[ColinJ]

The article say that it's a 7 kg FRAME, not BIKE! That is very heavy, so I suspect that it actually should have said BIKE. I would love to have a mountain bike that was 1 kg lighter than my best road bike!

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Well you have all raised all kinds of questions. Learning is fun

 

[midlife]

Should have milled it out of titanium

Shaun

 

[Jody]

The article say that it's a 7 kg FRAME, not BIKE! That is very heavy, so I suspect that it actually should have said BIKE. I would love to have a mountain bike that was 1 kg lighter than my best road bike!

Local guy to us was stocking a sub 20lb MTB. It looked gorgeous but then I saw the price

15lb for the fame in the OP is pretty heavy considering you can get complete decent AM/160 travel bike that is around 30lb

 

[roadrash]

you would need to grip the bars tight to avoid sliding off that saddle though

 

[Pale Rider]

Well done to the company for trying something different.

But all I think they've discovered is why bicycle frames are made from hollow tubes.