Want to build up a MTB-ish Gravel or Gravel-ish MTB. Please help!

[Eljay]

I'm new here and was hoping to get some help / guidance w/ a project.

As stated, my goal is to build up a MTB-ish Gravel bike or Gravel-ish HT MTB on a reasonable budget.  I'm thinking:
Reasonably lightweight
Flat bars
Wide 700c (or narrow-ish 29er) wheels,
Aggressive (for gravel) geo - maybe something a bit longer and around 68-69 degree HA resembling a Cutthroat, Fezzarri Shafer, Sonder Camino, etc.
Long (for gravel) dropper

I have some useable gravel components so my 1st choice would be to find a a gravel frame that fits the bill, but I have not found anything like this in the Chinese carbon market as they all seem to be pretty much the same standard geo, but if anybody has seen anything like this please let me know

The other idea is to pick up a HT frame where the geo is in that neighborhood (something like an Epic, Alma, etc.), a suspension corrected rigid fork, preferably non-boost so can use current wheels, or maybe even pick up some new wheels if too big of a pain to convert current non-boost rear wheel to boost.  Based on my research so far, this is probably a more likely scenario, but would love to find a vendor who sells as many of the components as possible under one roof and would maybe even install the headset / BB (if PF) to save me the trouble!

If anybody has any suggestions, leads, or ideas on the best frame / vendor for this project, I would really appreciate the input.  Thanks!


 

[Confused]

A challenge with the MTB frame route is limitation on front chainring size.  Most likely it is 36T or smaller.  Gravel frames will have something similar to 46T. 

An example of one build with MTB frame http://chinertown.com/index.php/topic,2837.msg20146.html#msg20146

[G161]

I'm new here and was hoping to get some help / guidance w/ a project.

As stated, my goal is to build up a MTB-ish Gravel bike or Gravel-ish HT MTB on a reasonable budget.  I'm thinking:
Reasonably lightweight
Flat bars
Wide 700c (or narrow-ish 29er) wheels,
Aggressive (for gravel) geo - maybe something a bit longer and around 68-69 degree HA resembling a Cutthroat, Fezzarri Shafer, Sonder Camino, etc.
Long (for gravel) dropper

I have some useable gravel components so my 1st choice would be to find a a gravel frame that fits the bill, but I have not found anything like this in the Chinese carbon market as they all seem to be pretty much the same standard geo, but if anybody has seen anything like this please let me know

The other idea is to pick up a HT frame where the geo is in that neighborhood (something like an Epic, Alma, etc.), a suspension corrected rigid fork, preferably non-boost so can use current wheels, or maybe even pick up some new wheels if too big of a pain to convert current non-boost rear wheel to boost.  Based on my research so far, this is probably a more likely scenario, but would love to find a vendor who sells as many of the components as possible under one roof and would maybe even install the headset / BB (if PF) to save me the trouble!

If anybody has any suggestions, leads, or ideas on the best frame / vendor for this project, I would really appreciate the input.  Thanks!

I've got the exact same idea as you! I think I've settled on this Lexon Scale frame which i think is beautiful and can take a 40T chain ring, the geometry is quite dated though. but the large chain ring is super nice! What do you think?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003394218912.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.1000014.4.4f8d407bLO2MsZ&gps-id=pcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.40050.281175.0&scm_id=1007.40050.281175.0&scm-url=1007.40050.281175.0&pvid=f704bbd7-ab8b-4484-9703-0c9b57df6d89&_t=gps-id:pcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller,scm-url:1007.40050.281175.0,pvid:f704bbd7-ab8b-4484-9703-0c9b57df6d89,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238116%232002&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2212000025582545314%22%2C%22sceneId%22%3A%2230050%22%7D&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21KRW%21%21436577.0%21412652.0%21%21%21%21%402101d1bb16560527882601313e29af%2112000025582545314%21rec

[Eljay]

I decided to go with the OG-EVKIN CF-052 which has a 69.8 HA and 74 STA and can accept my current non-boost wheelset.  Unfortunately it is press fit BB and while I would have strongly preferred threaded, I couldn't find a frame that matched all my criteria so that was the concession I had to make.

My idea was to either get a slightly longer A-C fork (around 500mm) to slacken it out a bit more, or possibly install an angleset or spacer puck to accomplish this, but I'm realizing that this looks like an integrated headset so I'm not sure if this would work?  I've never worked with an integrated headset before so not sure if it is possible to use an angleset or spacer puck.  Does anybody happen to know?

[Confused]

You can get a screw together BB that works in the press-fit shell.  Wheels MFG makes very nice ones.  ZTTO has ones that are ok - mixed experiences with the bearings but they are cheap/easy to swap out.  https://ztto.aliexpress.com/store/group/BB386-PF30/1101423688_513462284.html