This was on the Framebuilder's List, from Tim Paterek, author of the Paterek Manual of framebuilding. I thought it might be interesting to us as well, even though it is primarily a framebuilding issue.
Silver-brazed steel rules!
Greg Parker A2 MI USA
(and steel is still real!)
> The most common frame repairs I have had to do through the years - starting
> with the
> most frequent - are:
>
> 1. Right rear dropouts - adjacent to the chainstay joint
> 2. Right chainstays - adjacent to the dropout joint
> 3. Downtubes - in the vicinity of the lever bosses
>
> I would estimate that those three repairs made up about 50% of the repair
> part of
> my frame business over a 25 year period. I would attribute the failures to
> overheating of the joints at the factory. Every single one of these I
> repaired was brass brazed and a vast majority of the chainstay/dropouts
> were chromed. In fact, it was monotony of replacing broken dropouts that
> finally made me phase out frame repairs.
>
> Tim Paterek