WeldingWeb - Welding Community for pros and enthusiasts banner

heat treat aluminium???

5.2K views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  hotrodder  
The alloy and actual tubeset that your frame is made from will determine what's required in the way of PWHT. As said, typical alloys used for bicycles are 6061 and 7005 which have fairly different properties but there's also a lot of proprietary alloys used these days. There's often a sticker on the frame advertising what it's made of, either something like 7005-T4, 6061-T6 or something like EA6X (treat like 6061) in the case of proprietary alloys.

Compared to 6061, 7005 takes longer to anneal (i.e. is 'damaged' less by welding) and makes a better (and fast) recovery.

Frames made from 7005 are typically just aged after welding- cheaper ones naturally, higher end frames artifically by soaking at set temperatures (upto around 160C) for a set amount of time- in the region of 8- 10 hours. 6061 frames are typically put through both a solution heat treatment (soak at around 500C for a set time and quench) and artifical aging. It depends on who you speak to but about the best recovery 6061 will make on it's own is upto around 50%, for the weld and surrounding HAZ which contains both partially annealled and overaged areas

If you intend to turn your bike into a single speed jump bike you'd be better off selling it and buying a single speed jump bike imo. If it's a relatively basic 7005 tubeset then i wouldn't worry about it too much for sensible (boring) use