Brian, It will benefit some of us, and thanks for the information again. Could other things be factors: contour of the portion of the dropout that's inside the stay--most of the broken dropouts I see are broken across the tang that is inside the chainstay, and most of these are brazed in the Asian/Trek factory style, where the stay end is domed and there's just a thin ring of brass around the dropout where the stay was touching it rather than the whole width of the tang having brass on it. David Feldman
> Richard,
>
> Way back when all there was were Campagnolo dropouts, we were taught at
> Masi Carlsbad to file the inside of the triangle hole in the dropouts;
> making sure to get into the corners and square everthing up and remove
> the sometimes present small imperfections caused by the forging process.
> NO one ever told us why this was part of the proceedure, but years later
> I realized it is cheap insurance to help prevent dropout breakage. I
> have to assume there is some benifit to that little detail; because over
> 25 years of building frames, I've never had to replace a broken dropout
> on one of my frames, except in two cases of dropouts involved in
> crashes. There is no doubt that riding on a broken axel is the primary
> cause of broken dropouts, but there's no substitute for cheap insurance.
> I don't think this information will benifit too many framebuilders
> today, since most builders use cast plug-on dropouts these days.
>
> Brian Baylis
> La Mesa, CA
> >
> > the campagnolo dropouts will break due the following
> > explanation, owing to the fact that the wheels are
> > riding on bent or broken axles. it is the axle problem
> > which causes the dropout problem. it is not caused
> > simply by using a spacer or spacers, or freewheels.
> > keep up on your axle maintenance and the dropout
> > will not break.
> > e-RICHIE
> >
> > On Tue, 16 Jan 2001 21:43:03 -0500 tomwitkop@juno.com writes:
> > >
> > > Further divergence but perhaps helpful. I was recently at John
> > > Hollands'
> > > His theory is that the normal
> > > freewheel style set up allowed for an extended spacer or spacers
> > between
> > > the right side lock nut end of the bearing. This extended axle would
> > > continually flex while riding constantly massaging the dropout and
> > > eventually and apparently, inexorably, leading to failure. The
> > > theory seems reasonable to me.