Re: [CR]Stainless frame parts

(Example: Component Manufacturers:Cinelli)

From: <OROBOYZ@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 09:39:37 EDT
Subject: Re: [CR]Stainless frame parts
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org


In a message dated 8/26/2002 3:27:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time, G.Duke@civag.unimelb.edu.au writes:

<< Is there a downside to using stainless lugs or dropouts. >> I am certainly not as expert as others here (to date production = mere 31 frames!) but a quick reply would include:

- the need to silver braze the joints. This is solved by Henry James by the dropout being a plug-in style, which has it's own set of problems. You have to use one of the fixed diameters of tubing that the dropouts are designed for..... and the angle setting of the stays is a whole different deal. And you are limited to the look of HJ which isn't at all bad but is singular... Earlier attempts at stainless steel drops with more traditional flat tangs required either leaving gaps in the brazing where the silver doesn't like to build a filet, or somehow shimming or plugging the gap..

- Vertical drops only. The characteristics of most of the stainless alloys make the dropouts less malleable and not as easy to take a "bite" from the axle and qr locking nuts, making a horizontal drop out (preferred by some of us) not as acceptable in stainless as the wheel is more likely to slip out under applied torque. So verticals are prevalent in successful designs.

- The lugs are not so difficult except it is harder to "set" angles beyond their designed in geometry...

- As Jeff Bohm said, brazing these is ... different! Takes a different approach and touch. Scary & sketchy the first few times! I built a bike a number of years ago with stainless lugs (available head lugs only) that were Italian made and bought by me from Andy Newlands at Strawberry... The frame went very well, it has since toured the world, but I have never heard of those again nor seen them in use anywhere....

Dale Brown
Greensboro, North Carolina