Kualis ti frames

[54ny77]

Yowza:

http://kualis.cc/

Background says he was welder at Seven from '07 - '14.

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/12/03/f58b74639b3258c798007983799970af.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/12/05/821b7cd66ade6a10dc89aca9610cb70a.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LP_c3JqcIis/Vl92bkdwVkI/AAAAAAAAQ3A/ri90G3OfejA/s400/23477067785_4e9165e2f8_k.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tK9J7lNbX-I/VhCHk2foT-I/AAAAAAAAQk4/VJxbbrPsxF4/s1170-r/IMG_4839.JPG

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LLxb1BRNjIs/Vl92q7JkZ5I/AAAAAAAAQ34/3Uwfw9-Q80E/s1600/23450957036_ee2aa8eef5_k.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JnnZn7PCr7I/VjotvaM0BCI/AAAAAAAAQtE/Sux7SzidA-o/s1600/22144998143_a8287bee88_b.jpg

Found initially from weight weenies site, then found a few other links.

[molly47]

woooooo beautiful,thought my Baum was stunning

[Lanternrouge]

They are really pretty and a reminder I can never have as many bikes as I want because I see so many that I would like to have notwithstanding limitations of money, storage space and time to ride them.

[soulspinner]

nice.

[weisan]

pushing the boundary....love it!

[needmobikes]

The anodized graphics looks pretty

[sailorboy]

nice work.

Don't know if the folks at Firefly should be flattered or peeved ;)

[Joachim]

nice work.

Don't know if the folks at Firefly should be flattered or peeved ;)

Maybe Peter Verdone designed the Kualis dropouts too. I don't know if Verdone retained intellectual property on the dropouts.

http://www.peterverdone.com/?p=6317

[J. Anquetil]

I'm afraid that checkered pattern will not last too long. The polished tube is covered with tape to create the pattern, and then the tube is blasted for the satin finish, remove the tape and presto. Eventually the effect wears off. Dunno about the color, though.

[happycampyer]

Not sure I follow. The brushed background should remain brushed, and the polished/anodized accents should remain polished/anodized. I have brushed or bead-blasted ti frames with polished logos that seem pretty permanent as far as I can tell (no change in years).

[texbike]

Is this the Dave Wages of Ti??? :)

Nice work!

Texbike

[eBAUMANN]

Yoshi is probably the best titanium builder in the country that nobody knows about, primarily because most of his customers live in Japan. He spent years at level (in Japan) before starting at seven, he is also the man who taught Nao Tomii (Tomii cycles) how to weld.

He is good friends with everyone at firefly, fwiw. Also, I could be wrong here but firefly is probably not the first company to anodize titanium...

[SleepyCyclist]

http://builderslife.blogspot.com/

Came across his blog a few years ago - really wonderful stuff.

m

[martinez]

woah...that first frame looks great! looks beefy.
don't understand only half of the frame being painted on the second one though!

[Formulasaab]

I met Yoshi a few years ago at D2R2 and found him to be a really nice guy. I've been following his work ever since.

When I got my Level a couple years ago Yoshi volunteered the information on how to determine the build date based on the bottom bracket stamping.

His welding is top notch to be sure. If I were buying a custom Ti frame today, I'd probably go with him.

The dropout is his own design. You can see his thought/design process if you go back far enough in his blog.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K8sCt-5bsy8/VNwEHIxwndI/AAAAAAAAQIA/pCmL2VNVvQo/s1600/16357509452_b1846dbc59_k.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J_F2JRDWWT0/VNwEFqGPp6I/AAAAAAAAQHw/497zmu7loPc/s1600/IMG_1202.JPG

[fuzzalow]

Outstanding. Splendid work and indeed pushes the boundaries in the ways that are, to my eye, tastefully progressive. But not progressive to a fault, as evidenced by a threaded bottom bracket instead of the cop out in some oversized, press fit abomination.

His bead lines in the join are a finer line, meaning as far as the width. The join goes for a more diffuse presentation, smoothed over without the look of a harder serration along the weld. No "stack of dimes" effect for this builder - that's already been done and he has brought in a different aesthetic for his frames. And the dropouts are one more area for unique builder trademark. This is what pushes the state of the art forwards, the ability to differentiate the brand by the presentation in the frame where every aspect was designed, fabricated and controlled by the builder - none to little standardized fitments were used in the frame. That this frames is outfitted for electronic shifting bike frame also plays well for the elegance sans cable fitments.

I'd enjoy examining one of these frames close-up and in hand.

[Mikej]

Want -The fish scale pattern is very cool.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p4BUzWH4mLg/VNj-KFfA2pI/AAAAAAAAQHM/TzpzOQs8lHI/s1600/16482769365_81b9b0171e_k.jpg

What bottle cages are these?

[batman1425]

Stunning. Love the anodizing.

[crashnburn]

They are so beautiful that I would just hang it up and stare it...

[benb]

I absolutely love this Anodized stuff. I've never seen one of these frames in person (much more likely I'd see an anodized Firefly of course), do they look as cool in person?

I would be curious about how these hold up... does the anodization scratch? I could have sworn I read somewhere that Seven had said they wouldn't do it for durability reasons.

[Dead Man]

I absolutely love this Anodized stuff. I've never seen one of these frames in person (much more likely I'd see an anodized Firefly of course), do they look as cool in person?

I would be curious about how these hold up... does the anodization scratch? I could have sworn I read somewhere that Seven had said they wouldn't do it for durability reasons.

This has been my thought. Ti scratches so easily. BUT it's not like bead blast finish is easy to touch up like a brushed or polished finish, yet people still ride them all the time, and most don't look like ····. The anodized parts are in areas less prone to scratching (well, except for the TT bit... I get a lot of scratches right there), so they're probably OK.

I'd ride it.

[roguedog]

Man, nice find.

Really like the clean lines he has going. Very clean aesthetic. And he's in NJ. With all the retailers in Japan, I'd figured he was outta JP.

Looks like he specializes in building them my size. Ahem. :hello::beer:

[Tony Edwards]

I remember hearing or reading years ago that anodizing weakens titanium, but I have no idea if that's true. Anyone smarter than me have information on that? Google isn't telling me much, but that may be as much about the fact that ti is no longer a trendy frameset material as it is about the truth or falsity of the claim.

[eBAUMANN]

I remember hearing or reading years ago that anodizing weakens titanium, but I have no idea if that's true. Anyone smarter than me have information on that? Google isn't telling me much, but that may be as much about the fact that ti is no longer a trendy frameset material as it is about the truth or falsity of the claim.

id be pretty surprised if that were true, considering the type of anodization firefly and now kualis are doing if more like painting than anything else. its a very different process compared to anodizing aluminum for example.

a liquid (not exactly sure what...) is painted onto the frame in the desired areas, then a current is run through the metal, it reacts and changes color based on the charge. so yea, as far as i know, its a surface coat treatment (like paint) that doesnt effect any of the material underneath and can easily be removed.

[Dead Man]

I'm pretty shaky on titanium "anodizing," since the internet hasn't seemed to really come to a unified opinion on whether or not "heat anodizing" is even anodizing or some kind of annealing, like with brass... but my understanding is that what we generally see on titanium is "heat anodizing," which is more like case-hardening on steel or annealing on brass than anodizing on aluminum. You just slowly heat up the surface of the Ti until it's the color you want, then remove the heat.

My knowledge ends there. I can see how someone could make the argument that this might harden the Ti and make it weaker... but I have no idea if that's actually the case. Ti isn't steel, and all these metals behave totally differently.

[Formulasaab]

I'm pretty shaky on titanium "anodizing," since the internet hasn't seemed to really come to a unified opinion on whether or not "heat anodizing" is even anodizing or some kind of annealing, like with brass... but my understanding is that what we generally see on titanium is "heat anodizing," which is more like case-hardening on steel or annealing on brass than anodizing on aluminum. You just slowly heat up the surface of the Ti until it's the color you want, then remove the heat.

My knowledge ends there. I can see how someone could make the argument that this might harden the Ti and make it weaker... but I have no idea if that's actually the case. Ti isn't steel, and all these metals behave totally differently.

No. That is not what you are seeing here. This is an electrolysis process.

[eBAUMANN]

^ listen to stefan, stefan knows whats up.

[Formulasaab]

I've done a fair bit of anodizing in my day, though not in recent years. I've anodized aluminum, titanium, and niobium.

What we're talking about here is solely electrolytic anodizing. Heat anodizing is really unrelated.

Firstly, anodizing is the process of building an anodic layer on metal. Many metals can be anodized, but we'll stick to Ti and aluminum for the present discussion.

The process of anodizing aluminum has only one thing in common with titanium... It uses electrolysis to build an anodic film on the surface of the metal. There the similarity ends.

For aluminum, the anodic layer forms in the shape of microscopic tubes, like a bunch of straws, perpendicular to the surface. These tubes accept dye, and once filled are sealed over in a hot bath of water/nickel acetate.

Hard-anodizing aluminum is another story altogether.

With titanium, the anodic layer itself acts like a prism. The color you see is dependent upon the layer thickness, as a thicker or thinner layer refracts light differently. Controlling the layer thickness (and thereby the color) comes from either time or voltage, or both. You can crank the voltage up and expose the material to the electrolyte bath briefly to get a thin layer, or you can lower the voltage and expose it for as long as that voltage is effective. Either technique works, though obviously one is far more controlled than the other.

The anodic layer on titanium anodizing is far harder than paint or powder coat. In essence, it is part of the metal and so has a similar hardness to the metal itself. However, it is far thinner than paint. The net effect is a more delicate finish. It isn't awfully delicate, but in the same way as powder coat is more durable than paint because it is several times thicker, paint is more durable than anodizing.

There is no weakening effect of titanium from anodizing that is worth worrying about. I suppose it is there, as any electrolysis process does embrittle the material to some degree, but it is so fractional, and so shallow, in this case as to be entirely insignificant. Welding the metal does thousands of times (and I may be understating the lack of significance) more damage to the material strength than anodizing does.

When cleaning anodized ti, you do it gently. No abrasives. Water, soap, a soft cloth or sponge. I'd wax it often to make it easier to clean next time.

[Liberace]

Best frame builder in Morristown, NJ!

[chiasticon]

I love the look of the anodizing, but I gotta say that one of the reasons I love my IndyFab Ti is that the bead blasted material is tough as balls. sure, you can put marks on it, but it's pretty difficult. they just don't show very easily. moots on the other hand, it's pretty easy to mark up. it's blends better than nicked paint does, but it's still there. the mentality of not needing to care about the paint finish at all is what makes Ti so great to me; utilitarian in a way. so for that reason, I'd personally do very little anodizing if I ever got a Kualis or Firefly frame. and definitely not paint.

regardless, that's a beautiful frame, with even more gorgeous welds; and I wasn't aware of this company at all.

[Mzilliox]

this just blew my mind. so now someone can do the Steelhead graphics im after on a Ti bike? blowing my mind. this work is amazing