3D-printed titanium offers new possibilities for bike builders

Road bikes created of a mix of titanium and carbon fiber are may already somehow special, and actually additional so if they’re created to order. The people at Australia’s Bastion Cycles, yet, are bringing things actually additional. Their recently-announced initially version showcases filament-wound carbon tubes, joined to one another with titanium lugs that are 3D printed to fit the buyer.

Once the company’s ordering process is up and running, customers can use an online portal to create their bike – this can involve things like submitting body measurements, and selecting desired ride characteristics. This data can determine the length of the tubes, and the dimensions/angles of the lugs.

From there, once the order has been placed, Bastion’s 3D printing device can go to work. Utilizing a laser, it can selectively melt aerospace titanium powder, assembling the lugs up in layers one one-thousandth of an inch thick. All of the lugs (and wheel dropouts) for one bike can be printed in one create session, that takes less than a day to consume.

The carbon tubes are subsequently inserted into the lugs, and bonded in place. A really great side benefit of that process is the fact that if any of those tubes should at any time break, they can be individually replaced.

Bastion’s Ben Schultz tells us that when lugs are created of traditional titanium tubing, createers are creatively limited by the dimensions and shape of those tubes. Casting lugs of molten titanium is an version, although the wall thickness of those lugs must yet be relatively thick, thus adding mass.

By contrast, for the reason the 3D-printed lugs are created with a supporting mesh-like structure within, their walls can be as thin as one twenty-thousandth of an inch. As a outcome, says Schultz, his company’s lugs are both lighter and less constrained in create than the additional conventional alternatives.

Bastion is already bringing preorders for its Road Disc bike (as it is called for now), with the possibility of cyclocross and mountain bike versions coming out at a later date. A frameset can cost you US$5,400 plus shipping of Melbourne.

Company website: Bastion Cycles