Possible to have new steerer fitted to forks?

[TreaderSteve]

I see Mercian appear to be able to do it for £95. What's the general consensus on fork construction? All the undersides of forks I can remember seeing look a bit knobbly as if the steerer is TIG'd in, rather than smooth as if they are brazed in and are then un-brazeable and the steerer can be replaced. I know not how steerers are fitted, obviously!

I've been looking for 1" forks for a 90-91 Merlin - I could nab some probably slightly earlier Project 2s from my brother but they're in all honesty maybe a bit spindly as the Merlin's a bit oversize. I may be wrong and I should bite his arm off and nab them?

There are some Orange F7s from one of my old broken Oranges in the shed which are very seksy, I don't mind they're British on an American bike, but the steerer's too short. Do I spend my ££ getting them chopped-about and is it even possible do you think? Anyone had it done? Anywhere that'll do it cheaper?!

 

[bold stelvis]

steerer extensions are generally done by chopping the existing steerer above the butt in the tube and then joining a new steerer length to that with some sort of press fit sleeve inside to help bolster the joint - then it all gets welded and sanded - theres a great video on Paul Brodie's youtube channel that goes through the whole process

most MTB forks are unicrown or tig welded so no chance of somehow 'unbrazing' - from what I have learned online, most builders think that unbrazing a brazed in steerer on a more 'traditional' road bike style fork isn't a good idea anyway as the heat might screw up the whole joint assembly into the legs as well

I doubt any competent job is going to be cost effective vs just finding and buying some forks TBH
nice ones do pop up fairly regularly on ebay and here - you just have to be patient and wait for the right ones (steerer lengths are often the issue in my experience - was in the same boat recently)

 

[kafer-k]

I'd get the Project2 forks, always been a fan of them. There's a YouTube video of Paul Brodie extending a steerer tube worth checking out. What headset are you planning to use? If you go for something with a low stack height it means you can get away with a shorter steerer. What's the actual measurement of your headtube?

 

[TreaderSteve]

Thanks both for the above. It looks like whipping-out the steerer and boshing in another on MTB forks is not such an easy option. F7s are sweeeeeet-as though.

They won't look too bad I suppose - the bro knows their worth - time to barter!

 

[klunkrider]

I’ve done steerer extensions using the chop and slug method, I won’t de/un-braze a steerer from a crown lug as I don’t think it can be done without getting the leg joints hot enough that it might disturb the silver in there.

I’ve never built a unicrown fork but have done a few segmented ones and for those I use a sleeve that gets capillary brazed onto a steerer tube to make the crown race seat. You then attach the legs onto the sleeve. You could potentially undo the sleeve/steerer joint but IMO you can’t then do as good a job of capillary brazing another steerer in there as the legs are in the way of you properly heating the sleeve.

Also you would use a different sleeve for 1” and 1 1/8” (and a crown lug would also be sized for either 1” or 1 1/8”) so a conversion would never be possible.

 

[gtturbo]

Try @danson67. He lengthened the steerer on some forks for me.

 

[bikeworkshop]

Makes most sense to just buy the right fork, with the right length steerer and sell the ones you've got that are too short. it will work out cheaper, unless you did it yourself.

 

[Dr Dremel]

Try @danson67. He lengthened the steerer on some forks for me.

Yeah I´d give Dan a call. If you have a certain fork in mind it can be a loong wait for one with a 200mm+ steerer.

Edit: P2s, especially non- triple butted (TBs are even more flexible than the Ritchey Logics), sound like a good plan?

 

[bikeworkshop]

This is why i suggest finding the right fork:

I extended some quality forks with a sleeve brazed into the steerer
- about 5000 miles later my headset felt really tight, although I got the 15 miles to work ok but concerned

- closer inspection revealed the original steerer was cracking across the very top of the sleeve!
The sleeve was fine, the joints were fine...

Of course you can't run the sleeve full length in a threaded steerer because the quill needs to slide in a few inches, whereas with ahead, you could go right through and use an inch star nut.

A quill stem produces a stress riser around the wedge, an ahead stem just below the stem and just above the headset wedge.