Choosing dropouts

[abeship]

About to place an order for some material to attempt my first frame... Been practicing tig welding on thin walled chromoly and am starting to get somewhere with it (nothing like what some of you guys can do...)

Curious on dropout styles, I know that socketed is the easier type rather than having to slot the stays, but curious as to how this works for tig welding (if at all?)?

I'll be ordering .9/.6/.9 from nova as well as some BB's, what dropout should I be looking for?

Tubeset I'll be going with is here:
ROAD TUBESET 9/6/9 TT AND 9/6/9 DT :: ROAD TUBESETS :: NOVA :: STEEL TUBESETS :: TUBE SETS :: Nova Cycles Supply Inc.

Thanks for any suggestions...

-Abraham Shipley

[abeship]

The ones I am looking at are these below, but again I am not sure how difficult it is to tig weld the socketed style

Road Rear Socket Style Two Eyelet for 12.5mm SS / 12.5mm CS :: ROAD DROPOUTS :: STEEL DROPOUTS :: DROPOUTS :: Nova Cycles Supply Inc.

[blasdelf]

The ones I am looking at are these below, but again I am not sure how difficult it is to tig weld the socketed style

Road Rear Socket Style Two Eyelet for 12.5mm SS / 12.5mm CS :: ROAD DROPOUTS :: STEEL DROPOUTS :: DROPOUTS :: Nova Cycles Supply Inc.

Those would be a disaster trying to weld them as a beginner, you want these:

BREEZER DROP WITH REPLACEABLE-STAINLESS STEEL HANGER :: ROAD DROPOUTS :: STEEL DROPOUTS :: DROPOUTS :: Nova Cycles Supply Inc.

[abeship]

Thanks for the input Fred. It's hard to see in that photo there, but will I need to slot the CS/SS with that style or is it socketed like the ones I linked?

Thanks again

[blasdelf]

will I need to slot the CS/SS with that style or is it socketed like the ones I linked?

Neither! You cope the ends of the stays to butt up against the dropout hood as if it were another tube

The casting has a small plug poking out for the chainstays to help you locate them in phase with each other

If this is all novel you might want to look at the details on some more welded steel bikes first. It's totally possible to add cable stops and water bottle bosses without brazing and there are parts designed for fusion welding, but it'll require careful selection and you'll definitely be doing it the hard way.

[artfrank]

It sounds like you don't have access to an acetylene torch set up. I'd look into getting one as all of the braze-ons on a bike are waaaay easier to do with brazing rather than tig. This would also allow you to use slotted dropouts and braze them, which is also a lot easier.

[abeship]

I can probably use a friends oxy/acetyl set-up if thats the way to go with the braze ons... I figured slotting the CS/SS would be more difficult than just tig welding it on but I could absolutely be wrong...

Only reason why I'm really choosing to tig the tubing is because I've got a nice tig welder and much more practice with that than using the oxy setup.

[edoz]

If you're gonna do Breezer style dropouts, spend a few more bucks and get these from Paragon Machine Works.
www.paragonmachineworks.com - DR21SteelFrameComponentsfor112x14RoundRearDropouto rderhangerseparately

You'll have a little more real estate to weld to, and the idea of a stainless steel hangar is kinda dumb. The replaceable hangar is like a fusible link, you WANT it to break before more expensive components do. A stainless hangar sounds cool, but it's way stronger than the $150 derailleur that it's designed to protect by breaking.
Paragon also sells replacement hangars in two lengths, for road and mtn setups.
Fourth reason is that the Paragon dropouts are machined, not cast like the Nova dropouts, and welding to cast anything exhibits varying degrees of suckage depending on material, filler and skill. If you aren't absolutely sure of your skill, don't shoot yourself in the foot with cast parts.

Also, if you're using a lugless BB shell, get that from Paragon as well. The ones I've seen from Nova are boat anchors and will give you more trouble with heat distribution because they are so much thicker than the tubes you'll be welding them to.

[abeship]

Thanks for the info Eric.

I'm not necessarily set on breezer style drop outs, but I would honestly prefer whatever I can tig to rather than braze as it's what I have and the way I'd like to learn.

Thanks again and good to note on the shells.

[afwalker]

Tig works fine for slotted dropouts. It's not that hard to cut the slots with a hacksaw and some files. Mark the angle with a sharpie or scribe a line. Do you have a jig you're using for this build? You could get the angle there, or bikecad pro will give it to you. I'm not sure if it's in the free version.
andy

[abeship]

I'll have a jig I've designed (Arctos copy) to help with the build. Which paragon slotted dropouts would you suggest for tig welding?

Thanks for all the input

[afwalker]

What are you building? Road, track, CX, mtn, cargo?
Here's one for road:
www.paragonmachineworks.com - DR24SteelRearVerticalDropout58DegreewithWindow
Look around here:
Dropouts - all - www.paragonmachineworks.com
andy

[abeship]

It'll be a road bike, thanks again for the help

[Burcak Erbil]

To my experience it would not be wise to TIG weld your dropouts as long as you do not have access to a serious and accurate jig.
It is very hard to get a sufficient level of accuracy from a homemade jig. Most likely you will end up with some rear-end alignment issues. And you will want to be able to do some post-adjustments, which is possible by remelting a brazed joint, but not on a tig welded one. At least not that I know of.
A plug or socket type dropout will be the best option for the first frame in my opinion.