The people we've been using for small quantities of 4130 no longer accept small orders, so, who are people using? I'm after a good selection of diameters and wall thicknesses in 4130, maybe bar stock and some T45 would be nice but not essential. I don't mind if they are UK based or somewhere in Europe (as long as they ship to the UK)
I use ULM TECHNOLOGIE - Aéroparts - Aéroshop - Accueil / Home for 25CD4s tubing, but they only sell metric sizes... Otherwise you can ask them to cut in length which fit your usage (like 1m20 lengths instead of 1m), and do not cost too much in shipment.
Other wise how about buying in bulk and selling to UK based home builders, me included. I'm sure theirs a reasonable market, I seem to pay more for straight gauge than I do for cheap butted tubes
We have been using PFAmetals, but have discovered today that it's no longer an option. Will look into the other options.
RE buying in bulk - We will happily sell some tube to other builders if they cannot source it themselves, let me know what you want and I'll see if we've got it. The bits I'm struggling to find aren't standard sized bike stuff (which I will now be getting from Ceeway)
I used PFA for my first frame as they were the first chromoly supplier I found who would do small / non commercial orders. For my second frame I searched around a bit more and found LAS Aerospace. LAS Aerospace Ltd
They have a partnership with Aircraft Spruce in the states, so in addition to the materials listed on the LAS website you may well be able to get other sizes available in america by quoting the material codes on the Aircraft spruce website.
Before ordering materals from them I quickly did a price comparison between them and PFA to see who was most competitive on price, to try and reduce costs. LAS came out cheaper on most of the tube sections I was considering and a lot cheaper on chromoly sheet.
One word of advice would be to give them a call if your going to order via the website to check their ordering system, because they use an additional part to their material code to differentiate between say a 4 feet lenght as a whole or four 1 foot lenghts of the same tube profile. Which could be fustrating and costly.
I'd be interested if you want to do a bulk buy (I'm a short distance up north near Preston so popping down to collect / ride in the peaks is an option). I'm going to be doing some more homebuild stuff over winter - will drop you an email.
I'm also hunting some small diameter tube (maybe 10 or 12mm). All I can find at the moment is short lengths of 14mm straight seatstays from Ceeway. Years ago I bought some 12mm 531 listed as tandem laterals but I don't think it is available anymore. On that subject - what are Reynolds in UK like to deal with (i.e. will they sell to homebuilders?) Last time I bought any of their tube (18 years ago....) it was when they were available through the Newman trade catalogue.
ring osborn in rotherham you may be pleasantly surprised if you get the right person
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