columbus DT15V Tubing

bicycle_disciple said:

The Colnago master x-light is made of DT15V tubing. Im interested in
knowing more about this material. A visit to columbus' website didn't
help me much.

Could someone enlighten me as to what the alloying elements are in
this material, and some chief defining characteristics, compared to
modern columbus tubing like Niobium and Nivacrom?

B.D

google indicates that it's chrome/molybdenum/vanadium. but as to
defining characteristics, you won't notice anything at the user level
from the alloying because all these steels have pretty much identical
stiffness - given the same dimensions, the tubes will all feel the same.
the only time you might be able to notice a [slight] difference is if
one of them is stronger than the rest allowing slightly thinner walls on
the tubes and thus be a little more elastic.

other than that, the differences are at the producer level where niobium
allows better grain size control on welding for instance. but on a
quality frame, overheating that it might mitigate shouldn't be an issue
anyway.

i suggest that if you want to know a little more, direct your research
towards the physical dimensions of the tubeset - that's much more
important to a user.

On Jul 29, 11:05 am, bicycle_disciple <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

The Colnago master x-light is made of DT15V tubing. Im interested in
knowing more about this material. A visit to columbus' website didn't
help me much.

Could someone enlighten me as to what the alloying elements are in
this material, and some chief defining characteristics, compared to
modern columbus tubing like Niobium and Nivacrom?

B.D

Niobium is an element and Nivacrom is an alloy that Columbus branded
and maybe developed, currently only used for Zona.

It is almost certainly a minor variation or custom dimension spec from
a current or recent Columbus tube set. And unless the set it was based
on is Zona, part of the reason why they did it was almost certainly to
have full-thickness sections appropriate for a production lugged frame
as opposed to TIG.

My advice would be get the full story from whoever you were planning
on buying this $2000 frame from. They'll know these things, right?

But really for that price, why not just get a custom frame?

Nate Knutson said:

On Jul 29, 11:05 am, bicycle_disciple <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

The Colnago master x-light is made of DT15V tubing. Im interested in
knowing more about this material. A visit to columbus' website didn't
help me much.

Quoted message said:

Could someone enlighten me as to what the alloying elements are in
this material, and some chief defining characteristics, compared to
modern columbus tubing like Niobium and Nivacrom?

Quoted message said:

B.D

Niobium is an element and Nivacrom is an alloy that Columbus branded
and maybe developed, currently only used for Zona.

It is almost certainly a minor variation or custom dimension spec from
a current or recent Columbus tube set. And unless the set it was based
on is Zona, part of the reason why they did it was almost certainly to
have full-thickness sections appropriate for a production lugged frame
as opposed to TIG.

My advice would be get the full story from whoever you were planning
on buying this $2000 frame from. They'll know these things, right?

But really for that price, why not just get a custom frame?

Thanks for your output. I found out that the master frame uses
nivachrome tubing. Probably the designation is just different. Its one
of the best steels.

If I buy a custom frame, I'd go to someone like Richard Sachs. That
will be sometime down the line. Right now, I want to have a Colnago.
Its like having a ferrari. 🙂

B.D