Frame Saver

Midlife":34wfa6vh said:

Just a curious question.....in the 70's there were no products like frame saver. When did they come about ?

Shaun

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I was wondering the same thing. I have plenty of 20/30/40 year old frames, in fact the oldest will be 60 next year There's no sign of any internal rust on any of them which makes me wonder what the point of Framesaver is? Is it another modern day Paranoia, or because it rains more than it used to?

People have been protecting the inside since they started making bikes, it is just now we have specific products.

Old club mates say they used to use engin oil.

This is just repackaged stuff with "professional, cycle ..." on it and sold at an inflated price in bike shops, just like "cycle" lubes and grease.

There are plenty of non-cycle rust proofing products that does the same thing if you want to use a specialised product rather than machine/engine oil/WD40 etc.

Eg, Waxoyl, available practically anywhere, £9 for 400ml, £20 for 2.5 l.

Framesaver, probably only a handful of places in the UK has it. The only online price I've found quotes £16 for 135ml (£7.50 P&P), and a 2006 review says £10.

Edit
I've read that Waxoyl is quite thick and needs to be warmed or thinned with a solvent, Dinitrol is supposed to be thinner.

Midlife":2zkyohee said:

Just a curious question.....in the 70's there were no products like frame saver. When did they come about ?

Shaun

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Linseed oil, I think. Used in my 70's Mercian. Ecofriendly, well proven and cheap.

I used te frame saver, comes with detailed instructions and was easy and not messy to do. Worth the money IMHO.

danson67":2luep0ar said:

Do you plug the small holes in the stays after?

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Personally, I do. Usually a good little plug of candle wax to keep the weather out, the Framesaver will protect from any internal condensation...

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Although the Framesaver would prevent rust, isn't it better to have a way for the condensation to exit? Couldn't you be left with water-logged tubes or would the moisture just "un-condense" (and the cycle repeat ad infinitum)?

ScillySuffolk":32yindol said:

danson67":32yindol said:

Do you plug the small holes in the stays after?

Click to expand...

Personally, I do. Usually a good little plug of candle wax to keep the weather out, the Framesaver will protect from any internal condensation...

Click to expand...

Although the Framesaver would prevent rust, isn't it better to have a way for the condensation to exit? Couldn't you be left with water-logged tubes or would the moisture just "un-condense" (and the cycle repeat ad infinitum)?

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I'm not sure about plugging the holes in the chain stays.

All the other tubes "breath" why try and seal the chain stay?

framesaver

I've used both framesaver and linseed oil and both work equally well. The oil is much cheaper but takes longer to dry. The advantage to framesaver is the spray tube fits in the little holes in the chainstays and fork legs. When I use linseed oil I have a syringe (small turkey baster with nozzle) that I fill with the oil to get those spots. Both methods are very messy. I also use linseed oil on spoke threads when I build wheels, it's much cheaper than spoke prep and dries kinda gummy.

BTW I got the frame saver here:

http://shop.18bikes.co.uk/products.php? ... 2b0s403p39

The P&P is a bit steep because Royal Mail wont take it so it hase to go courier

SS

Although the Framesaver would prevent rust, isn't it better to have a way for the condensation to exit? Couldn't you be left with water-logged tubes or would the moisture just "un-condense" (and the cycle repeat ad infinitum)?

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The idea is that the Framesaver is coating everything OK, so you just want to keep the rain out. Even at 30 degrees saturated air's only got 0.3g/l of water. An average seatstay volume might be 250ml, so you're only looking at less than 0.1g of water trapped.

If the internal coating isn't 100%, the Framesaver contains a volatile rust inhibitor, so there might be a little rust, but it also might use up any available oxygen so no more corrosion can occur. No available oxygen, no rust, however much condensation there is. If the tubes are open the cycle is constantly refreshed with air and water via the breather holes and the rust inhibitor is driven off.

I suppose the tubes would ideally be sealed on a cold very low humidity day, but I think that's better than sucking all sorts of water and dirt into the tubes each wet ride, puddle or river crossing.

Some open tubes can drain under gravity to a BB shell drainer hole (DT, TT and CS) if it's a lugged frame. However lugless frames, welded frames, and most head tube joints and seatstays only have small breather holes at the joints, so moisture can't drain efficiently and just pools up inside the joints.

All the best,