Cycling UK Forum

Until this year I have been able to keep my bikes in the house but now I'm having to keep all but one of them in the garage where it is naturally damp. I have three with steel frames which have had no treatment. I know about framesaver in an aerosol can which is used to protect the insides of steel tubes but should this only be used when the frame is new? If I use it now on existing frames how do I get rid of any moisture inside the frames? How much do I use and how do I know if all bare surfaces are covered? How do I get it into the far corners of the stays etc.? Does it just protect bare metal or will it protect rusted metal as well?

Thanks in advance for any learned advice,

Steve

The alternative is to use waxoyl poured into the tubes.

I've heard that framesaver is, basically, a thinner version of waxoyl.
I've used Waxoyl in the sills of a Maestro and it's pretty thick stuff and vile to use too. With a bike frame how much weight is it going to add?

Random thought number 52...


Silica gel sachets - grab from your latest delivery - insert...

Framesaver (or Waxoyl) can be used with advantage on a frame at any stage in it's life. If you're worried about sealing in damp, make each bike in turn the one that's allowed in the house and keep it there a few weeks with all possible orifices open, before applying the treatment.

Good idea but silica gel becomes saturated and then needs to be dried out or replaced.

I have used waxoyl - in aerosol form - but had to mix it with petrol and motor-oil to give it the right sort of consistency to flow into the nooks and crannies of my frame, which I achieved by swinging the frame round my head, rotating it etc (having first plugged the orifices with rags & gaffer tape). It was a messy job
If anyone has a better method I'd love to hear it...

Well you are really supposed to thin it with white spirit rather than petrol.

mountainman531 wrote:Good idea but silica gel becomes saturated and then needs to be dried out or replaced.

Ah! So why not buy a load of them damp absorbing crystals (DIY shops, or just lots of silica gel), stuffed in in net sausage and shove down the tubes for a time?

I have used Framesaver (supplied by Ceeway frame supplies in UK) . It is much, much thinner than waxoyl and therefore gets around the thin tubes like the rear stays. It's also aerosol application so goes in really well, also there's a great little leaflet explains how to do it all. It also cleans up easily with WD40. I didn't weigh my bike so can't provide evidence of weight but it seems to leave a thin residual film which I assume is negligible.
I'm no chemist but I guess like all underseals it protects against water and oxygen, the two main causes of rust. Silica gel would only protect against water. Also, how would you get silica gel into the seat stays and chain stays? It's only a tenner or something which does two frames, seems daft not to.

If the frame is sealed from the air, it cannot rust internally as that will need oxygen.
Grease seatpost etc and leave no hole open to the atmosphere and so on.

and how would you make it a vacuum ? and air tight.

Grease and screws.

I didn't make this up. Search Jobst Brandt and this stuff.

I've never seen structurally significant rust on a steel bike that wasn't ancient.

Haven't read all the replies but I've done lots of waxoyl on various motors. Borrow a compressor and use a schutz gun with a flexi tube with a 5-way nozzle that has holes in the sides as well as in the end - the waxoyl sprays out of it in all directions. I haven't done this to a bike cos I keep all my bikes indoors, but that's what i'd do if needed.

An alternative, a lot less hassle, is a spray can of dinitrol with a flexi tube - I've used that as well on motors.

I can't remember exactly which type of Dinitrol it was, might have been this:

http://www.frost.co.uk/item_Detail.asp? ... (1%20litre)

or this:

http://www.frost.co.uk/item_Detail.asp? ... x%20(500ml)

and I got the flexi tube with it:

http://www.frost.co.uk/item_Detail.asp? ... se%20(60cm)

As for adding weight to the bike, as long as you apply it evenly, you shouldn't have to use very much.

This is what Jobst Brandt, a man who knows what he's talking about, wrote about this.


From: jbrandt@hpl.hp.com (Jobst Brandt)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: frame prep ideas for extended storage
Date: 19 Mar 2001 21:41:57 GMT

Michael Evans writes:

> I built up a bike from a steel frame last year, and I sprayed Wiegle
> Frame Saver into it. It coats the interior with a sticky brown
> residue that protects it from rust. Unfortunately I can't find
> their web site...

It's best that way. You could also fill the frame with epoxy,
preferably with lead filler if you want to deaden the ringing sound of
the tubes and make the bicycle as heavy as possible for descending.
Steel frames have not been known to rust out, especially in storage.
The greatest damage to a frame comes from a seat clamp slot not being
filled with grease on assembly, this place being constantly bathed in
water from the rear wheel on wet roads without fenders. It's this
water and the failure of a frame painter not removing the newspaper or
rag plug from the seat tube after painting. Such a wick enhances
rusting enormously. Frame goop is for the paranoid.

Jobst Brandt <jbrandt@hpl.hp.com>

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