Raked blade MTB fork craziness

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Ethan Labowitz

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Jun 5, 2018, 12:24:35 AM6/5/18
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On a scale from "certain death!" to "you idiot!", how crazy would it be to build an MTB/bikepacking fork from the following:


...using raked blades. Like 70ish-mm low trail raked blades, too.

Having ridden a Crust Evasion on some decently technical singletrack recently, it strikes me that the Evasion fork blades are raked and tapered just like road blades. I didn't die MTBing on them.

Anyone done anything like this?

Thanks!

Ethan
Somerville, MA

Andy Newlands

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Jun 5, 2018, 12:38:10 AM6/5/18
to Ethan Labowitz, Framebuilders
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Andy Newlands

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Jun 5, 2018, 12:44:50 AM6/5/18
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Hahn Rossman

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Jun 5, 2018, 1:14:56 AM6/5/18
to Andy Newlands, Ethan Labowitz, Framebuilders
Ethan
Andy had you sorted on the blades and steerer, but I would suggest a box section crown rather than the twin plate design. Lots of bikes for made with the twin plate style and some of them are still around. I've seen some bad cracking of the bottom plate in older frames. Is it from being ridden too hard? Poor design? Bad execution? Who knows! What I do know is that the crown is under a lot of torsional stress and I've made forks for cyclocross racing that cracked due to poorly placed vent holes. Don't underestimate the twisting load between the fork blade and the steerer.
Hahn Rossman

Jon Norstog

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Jun 5, 2018, 2:41:04 AM6/5/18
to Hahn Rossman, Andy Newlands, Ethan Labowitz, Framebuilders
I second on the 853 blades. Just don't try to rake them further. On the Pacenti crown I did get a heads up on one of my old frames that turned up in an Albuquerque thrift shop with cracks in its lower plate. When I saw the picture all I could think was, did I cook that fork?  Guy sent the photo said the head tube was beaten out oval, too.

Jn

Andy

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Alex Wetmore

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Jun 5, 2018, 9:54:00 AM6/5/18
to Ethan Labowitz, Framebuilders

I would get Dave Levy's disk tab if you want to do a high rake fork.  It makes a nicer bend than the Paragon Willits does.


I built disk fork with 68mm of offset a number of years ago using Alistair Spence's bender (very tight radius) and a custom fork tab and haven't had any problems.  It uses lighter Columbus SL blades and a box section sloping cyclocross crown.  Those crowns are a little ugly, but let me shorten the blade length a bit and keep the blade diameter up at the dropouts.  I ride this fork all of the time while commuting and it has thousands of miles on it, many with an e-bike hub.


I also built a fork for a friend using the heavier Nova disk blades (which didn't exist when I built the fork mentioned above) and it was fine until the fender jammed into the wheel and caused a bad crash.


Two important things with the tab:

  • Run it up the outside of the blade, so that the top isn't acting like a can opener on the fork blade.  It's easy to want to center the tab because it makes for nice simple mitering, but it won't be as durable.
  • Feather the tab nicely with a good fillet so that you don't have a stress riser.


Elephant NFE forks are also similarly built.  The original ones used a twin plate crown, but fork blades that were too thin.  They switched to a unicrown design and thicker fork blades, but still use a tapered blade.  They use a custom tab.

alex

From: frameb...@googlegroups.com <frameb...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ethan Labowitz <elab...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, June 4, 2018 9:24:35 PM
To: Framebuilders
Subject: [Frame] Raked blade MTB fork craziness
 
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Harold Bielstein

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Jun 5, 2018, 10:24:17 AM6/5/18
to Alex Wetmore, Ethan Labowitz, Framebuilders
Have always wondered how well a disk fork built on the 7 deg offset cyclocross crown with  heavy blades (straight, 1 1/8" steerer, thru axle d/o's) would work for an adventure bike?

Sent from Hal's iPad

On Jun 5, 2018, at 7:53 AM, Alex Wetmore <al...@phred.org> wrote:

I would get Dave Levy's disk tab if you want to do a high rake fork.  It makes a nicer bend than the Paragon Willits does.


I built disk fork with 68mm of offset a number of years ago using Alistair Spence's bender (very tight radius) and a custom fork tab and haven't had any problems.  It uses lighter Columbus SL blades and a box section sloping cyclocross crown.  Those crowns are a little ugly, but let me shorten the blade length a bit and keep the blade diameter up at the dropouts.  I ride this fork all of the time while commuting and it has thousands of miles on it, many with an e-bike hub.


I also built a fork for a friend using the heavier Nova disk blades (which didn't exist when I built the fork mentioned above) and it was fine until the fender jammed into the wheel and caused a bad crash.


Two important things with the tab:

  • Run it up the outside of the blade, so that the top isn't acting like a can opener on the fork blade.  It's easy to want to center the tab because it makes for nice simple mitering, but it won't be as durable.
  • Feather the tab nicely with a good fillet so that you don't have a stress riser.


Elephant NFE forks are also similarly built.  The original ones used a twin plate crown, but fork blades that were too thin.  They switched to a unicrown design and thicker fork blades, but still use a tapered blade.  They use a custom tab.

alex

From: frameb...@googlegroups.com <frameb...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ethan Labowitz <elab...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, June 4, 2018 9:24:35 PM
To: Framebuilders
Subject: [Frame] Raked blade MTB fork craziness
 
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Eric Keller

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Jun 5, 2018, 11:07:24 AM6/5/18
to Framebuilders
I feel like the 7 degree crowns don't offer enough rake for a bike that has a slack headtube.  My gravel bike, an All City Macho Man disc has something like 45mm rake, and the flop is ridiculous.  This becomes apparent while climbing out of the saddle on a steep paved road. With 7 degree, it might have 50mm rake unless you put the blades in at a little bigger angle, which is possible but always seemed questionable to me.  OTOH, a fairly small bend in the blades would get you a more reasonable rake.
Eric Keller
Boalsburg, Pennsylvania 

On Tue, Jun 5, 2018 at 10:24 AM, Harold Bielstein <hkbie...@gmail.com> wrote:
Have always wondered how well a disk fork built on the 7 deg offset cyclocross crown with  heavy blades (straight, 1 1/8" steerer, thru axle d/o's) would work for an adventure bike?

Sent from Hal's iPad

On Jun 5, 2018, at 7:53 AM, Alex Wetmore <al...@phred.org> wrote:

I would get Dave Levy's disk tab if you want to do a high rake fork.  It makes a nicer bend than the Paragon Willits does.


I built disk fork with 68mm of offset a number of years ago using Alistair Spence's bender (very tight radius) and a custom fork tab and haven't had any problems.  It uses lighter Columbus SL blades and a box section sloping cyclocross crown.  Those crowns are a little ugly, but let me shorten the blade length a bit and keep the blade diameter up at the dropouts.  I ride this fork all of the time while commuting and it has thousands of miles on it, many with an e-bike hub.


I also built a fork for a friend using the heavier Nova disk blades (which didn't exist when I built the fork mentioned above) and it was fine until the fender jammed into the wheel and caused a bad crash.


Two important things with the tab:

  • Run it up the outside of the blade, so that the top isn't acting like a can opener on the fork blade.  It's easy to want to center the tab because it makes for nice simple mitering, but it won't be as durable.
  • Feather the tab nicely with a good fillet so that you don't have a stress riser.


Elephant NFE forks are also similarly built.  The original ones used a twin plate crown, but fork blades that were too thin.  They switched to a unicrown design and thicker fork blades, but still use a tapered blade.  They use a custom tab.

alex


Sent: Monday, June 4, 2018 9:24:35 PM
To: Framebuilders
Subject: [Frame] Raked blade MTB fork craziness
On a scale from "certain death!" to "you idiot!", how crazy would it be to build an MTB/bikepacking fork from the following:


...using raked blades. Like 70ish-mm low trail raked blades, too.

Having ridden a Crust Evasion on some decently technical singletrack recently, it strikes me that the Evasion fork blades are raked and tapered just like road blades. I didn't die MTBing on them.

Anyone done anything like this?

Thanks!

Ethan
Somerville, MA

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Ethan Labowitz

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Jun 5, 2018, 11:22:43 AM6/5/18
to alex wetmore, Framebuilders
It is, as usual, a pleasure to get input from folks on this list.


On Tue, Jun 5, 2018, 09:53 Alex Wetmore <al...@phred.org> wrote:

I would get Dave Levy's disk tab if you want to do a high rake fork.  It makes a nicer bend than the Paragon Willits does.


Oh, yea, that looks great. Pretty close to the Paragon design, but I think I see what you mean, it's longer. https://www.ticycles.com/ticycletubes/disc-tab-standard-1020-steel-long


I built disk fork with 68mm of offset a number of years ago using Alistair Spence's bender (very tight radius) and a custom fork tab and haven't had any problems.  It uses lighter Columbus SL blades and a box section sloping cyclocross crown.  Those crowns are a little ugly, but let me shorten the blade length a bit and keep the blade diameter up at the dropouts.  I ride this fork all of the time while commuting and it has thousands of miles on it, many with an e-bike hub.


I also built a fork for a friend using the heavier Nova disk blades (which didn't exist when I built the fork mentioned above) and it was fine until the fender jammed into the wheel and caused a bad crash.


Two important things with the tab:

  • Run it up the outside of the blade, so that the top isn't acting like a can opener on the fork blade.  It's easy to want to center the tab because it makes for nice simple mitering, but it won't be as durable.

So basically you're saying to maximize the area of the faying surfaces between disc tab and the blade? (Faying surfaces = the surface that would get brazed if it were just a capillary braze, no fillet) And to do that, it's better to keep the tab relatively flat, i.e. don't bend it to exactly follow the blade centerline. Also you're saying to further maximize faying area, one ought to to carefully file the tab to match the blade's outside profile, which is, annoyingly: tapering, transitioning from round to oval, sweeping away from the tab toward the crown, etc.

  • Feather the tab nicely with a good fillet so that you don't have a stress riser.

Now this I understand less. You mean "feather" as a part of the pre-braze filing operation or the fillet brazing operation or the post-braze filing operation? Do you mean to file the tab down to a knife-edge where it meets the blade, i.e. minimizing faying surface area?

Given that the LFB and the tab (1020 steel) have roughly the same tensile strength, one would think it wouldn't matter too much which material was present, assuming the braze is done well.

Thanks!

Ethan
 

Sent: Monday, June 4, 2018 9:24:35 PM
To: Framebuilders
Subject: [Frame] Raked blade MTB fork craziness
On a scale from "certain death!" to "you idiot!", how crazy would it be to build an MTB/bikepacking fork from the following:


...using raked blades. Like 70ish-mm low trail raked blades, too.

Having ridden a Crust Evasion on some decently technical singletrack recently, it strikes me that the Evasion fork blades are raked and tapered just like road blades. I didn't die MTBing on them.

Anyone done anything like this?

Thanks!

Ethan
Somerville, MA

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satanas

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Jun 5, 2018, 1:20:52 PM6/5/18
to Framebuilders
Hahn suggested a box section crown rather than the Pacenti twin plate, but is there one as wide???

Alex Wetmore

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Jun 5, 2018, 2:11:47 PM6/5/18
to satanas, Framebuilders

Not that I'm aware of.  There are sloping box section cyclocross forks that are 60mm wide (so fit a 50mm tire).


At one point I considered making a tandem fork using the Nova twin plate crown (which is beefier than the Pacenti and comes in two blade options).  I was going to turn it into a box section crown by brazing vertical plates into gap between the horizontal plates.  It would take time, but no special tools, to do a good job with this.  I suppose the same thing could be done with the Pacenti, but it would be tricky dealing with the windows built into that crown.


alex

From: frameb...@googlegroups.com <frameb...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of satanas <nsc.e...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2018 10:20:52 AM
To: Framebuilders
Subject: Re: [Frame] Raked blade MTB fork craziness
 
Hahn suggested a box section crown rather than the Pacenti twin plate, but is there one as wide???

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Ethan Labowitz

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Jun 5, 2018, 2:14:57 PM6/5/18
to satanas, Framebuilders
My mind went to making a crown out of square tube, like the old Fat Chances had. Something like 9/8" x .065 wall, even mild steel, seems beefy enough.

On Tue, Jun 5, 2018 at 1:20 PM, satanas <nsc.e...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hahn suggested a box section crown rather than the Pacenti twin plate, but is there one as wide???

T

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Jun 5, 2018, 2:25:34 PM6/5/18
to frameb...@googlegroups.com

And I went to wondering if ALL of the really fat-tire (4 and 5 inch) bikes do not use crowns  ...   ??

    Thomas Seaman:  noMadic
kokopedli.com

Hahn Rossman

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Jun 5, 2018, 3:50:32 PM6/5/18
to Thomas, Framebuilders
Ethan-
Crmo tubing is available to make a segmented fork and like I said those sections are under a lot of stress. Don't use mild steel tubing, it's not worth it in any way ( cost, ease, dental bills).
If you search on:
there is a lot of discussion from builders about sizing of segmented forks. One of the important things to consider is as your fork gets longer ATC the leverage increases against the crown.
Hahn Ros

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Mark Bulgier

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Jun 5, 2018, 4:08:04 PM6/5/18
to Stephen Poole, framebuilders@googlegroups. com
Consider a Bob Brown cnc crown. Not cheap ($70) and they are "biplane", but I expect it to be very strong. 73 mm tire clearance

If I were using it on a tandem, I would fill in the 4 windows with fitted steel plates, brass brazed in place. Set them a bit back from flush, so the braze has a little fillet both inside and out. That should be monstrously strong.

Mark Bulgier
Sent from my phone.
From: satanas <nsc.e...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2018 10:20 AM
To: Framebuilders
Subject: Re: [Frame] Raked blade MTB fork craziness

Hahn suggested a box section crown rather than the Pacenti twin plate, but is there one as wide???

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Ethan Labowitz

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Jul 10, 2018, 11:16:27 PM7/10/18
to Framebuilders
Just wanted to follow up on this thread. After buying some of his disc tabs, I stumbled across an old post of Dave Kirk's at https://www.bikeforums.net/framebuilders/878834-building-disc-capable-fork-2.html that explains his thoughts on disc forks, including a lengthier explanation of what Alex Wetmore describes above that really helped me get it (post #39). Copypasted below for posterity.

I thought I'd share my findings and thoughts on disc brakes on steel forks. I've done a lot of long term testing and have been using different versions of steel disc forks for coming on two years now. I certainly think that one can make a very good, reliable and safe fork to work with discs if it is done right and I also think that if you just stick some tiny tabs on a lightweight steel fork that bad things can happen. The tough part about talking about this on the web is that a poorly conceived fork looks for the most part like a well conceived fork at first glance.
Cutting to the chase here is what I've found. There are a few key things to keep in mind when designing and building the fork IMO. 
First is that diameter and wall thickness are your friend. Tapered blades almost always come much longer than is needed and most of the time folks bend the blades, stuff the tips in and then cut them to length by taking length off the large end. If one cuts the blade to length by cutting off the small end then the part of the blade dealing with most of the braking loads can be considerably larger than if the length is taken off the top. It can make fitting the tips a PITA but it helps a lot. It's also a very good idea to use blades with a heavy wall. This will make them stiffer and more resistant to de-raking.
Next up is the design of the dropout - I use a dropout with a very low angle or even 0° slot. This means that is the rider doesn't use the QR properly that the wheel will not get pulled out of the drops due to braking torque. If the slot angle is proper then the axle gets pushed sideways in the slot instead of out of it. It's also important to make sure you can offset the drop to the inside edge of the blade so that the rotor will not hit the inside of the blade.
Next are the disc tabs - there are two key things to consider here IMO - how far up the blade they go and where they mount to the blade rotationally. The first part of this is pretty obvious to most folks.............by making the tab extend up the blade it spreads the load and changes the leverage on the blade imparted my braking force. Because the blade is tapered you end up transferring a good bit of the load to a larger diameter section of the blade with an extended tab - a good thing. If done right it will also give the upper part of the tab more surface area where is meets the blade to lessen the point loads and any chance of the 'can opener' effect. The other thing to consider is where the disc tabs mount to the blade in a rotational sense (must be a better way to say that). When viewed from above it's important that the tab be mounted so that it meets the blade tangentially and not perpendicularly. By having it mount tangentially the tab does not try to push through the blade and collapse the tube but instead tries to twist it..........and the blade deals with that very well. Getting the tabs to sit on the blade in this fashion requires that you think ahead a good bit and not just make the fork and then see where then tabs land. Since the tabs mount in a fixed relationship to the drops it's the blade that needs to be moved in/out to get this alignment. One can do this with fork crown width and picking how the drops sit in the blades. A bit of a pain but worth it in the long run. The fact that the tab doesn't load the tube straight means that it is less prone to making the tube cross section change shape. I haven't tested this well enough to prove it but I feel strongly that the tab pushing on the blade and wanting to change the shape of the cross section of the blade can contribute to the de-raking effect. Mount the tab low and perpendicularly to the blade and it can flatten the tube which of course will pull the blade backward lessening the rake.
I went through many designs before I found one that performed the way I wanted with no weird twisting or shudder. I then worked on making sure the fork would stay together over the long term. In the end I have a fork I feel good about. I rode and tested the final version for a year before offering anything for sale. I can't tell you how sore my hands got riding down endless washboard dirt roads while using the front brake hard. In the end I have a fork that holds its geometry and alignment, handles and rides well and should stay together for them long term.
I hope that my findings help others make safer forks. A high tide raises all boats.
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