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If dlc was the hot ticket would you think that every factory team was running forks with it.
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If dlc was really the number one coating fork lowers they ALL would be running it. We know that dlc has less friction than tin against steel. What friction coefficient of dlc against teflon in heavy load? And there hydraulic fluid involved as well called fork oil. You would imagine that dlc comes more even more slippier right? Well that is not the case always. DLC coating surface is very smooth. Tin coating leaves little rougher surface but in it sametime it may help getting oil between the bushing and fork leg.
Factory ktm uses 52mm forks with alloy lowers, they do not have dlc. You can coat aluminium with dlc, some mtb forks might had them? Factory ktm for some reason just didnt go with it.
The 52mm WP forks use aluminum lowers, and while you can DLC aluminum, it loses its temper in the process as it requires high-heat; that's why you don't see DLC on the 52mm forks. There are other aluminum specific coatings that are low friction, and that's what they're using. The new 48mm WP cone valves don't use DLC either and claim to be using a coating with even better performance, but I don't know what it is, or if it's even any better.
We're in the middle of developing a test setup to get some actual numbers on how the coatings perform. I'm hoping to have that wrapped up in the next couple weeks so we have some real data rather than just internet speculation... Anyone have the new WP cone valves or a WP TiN tube we can borrow for some testing? We've got loads of stock and DLC tubes to test, but don't have any TiN or a set of the new cone valves.
Is there change you could get Molybdenum disulfide coating in there as well? The problem with it oxidation, but it sure is there with slippiest of pvd coatings.
You can coat dlc at lower temps too. Coating at lower temps you need get parts really really clean, otherwise you will get arching and poor adhesion. The aluminum mtb forks had some sort of plating under the dlc.
Assuming they did so because they think the chrome is better. Because from a marketing standpoint, the DLC is awesome looking.
I've read that the coating should be added from the factory as the tolerances are better. What says you on all this?
As far as I know, DLC is still the best coating available from a friction perspective in our application. It's also one of the most expensive. You see a lot of kit forks and race teams using more colorful TiN based coatings now, but that's more for looks than performance. Pro Circuit (and everyone else doing it) wants to sell kit forks, so they cater to what their customers want, which is largely to show off that they own kit forks. Blue/rainbow fork tubes do that! And you might be surprised how many things factory teams do that don't work as well as they could...
We stopped offering coating services last year. It was more trouble than it was worth in the end, and we needed to focus on our core business. So I have no skin in the game anymore which might sway my answers. If I were to have forks coated for my personal bikes, they would be regular black DLC coatings as that is the highest performance coating available.
A coating on the upper aluminum tubes (Kashima, Kyokote, etc.) requires the previous coating to be stripped first as it is much thicker than a PVD coating. Plus it wouldn't work if the old coating wasn't stripped first anyway.
Pit Row
i been trying to find out some info on the showa 47mm or KYB 48mm upper tubes.
anyone know what kind of aluminum the upper tubes are made of ?
and are heat treatment or not ?
thanks
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