I suppose I should have forewarded this to the group, rather than Aldo. Nice investigatory work, Aldo, but a point of correction: The first two generations of Record cranksets were polished, not anodized. First type, 1958 (raised pedal hole, pedal hole dust cap, circa '58-60) and second generation (raised pedal hole, no pedal dustcap) circa aspprox 1060/61. The record front derailleurs were not anodized. Also, there was a batch of record hubs produced in the 80's (around the time of the NR rear derailleur with lower mounted parallelogram spring, that were anodized. I see no reason for this except perhaps economy. it is very difficult to keep individual small parts separated in an acid tank - if they touch, the process will get screwed up (basically, the anode will short out). Imaging getting 10,000 units of front derailleur parts if you were Campy's anodizing company? Chainrings and cranks, on the other hand, are very easy to manage in the tank. Simply line them up on a rod in the tank and go for it. I assume that seatopsts were not anodized because the damage done to the surface with insertion would be irrepairable. With an unanodized seatpost, the zig-zags and minor imperfections can be esily cleaned up. I don't know about mechanics having a fondness for polishing hubs, but I guess they's have to if they weren't anodized. Anodized hubs go back to the late 40's, fr as I know (Airlite, Powell, Harden), and perhaps earlier. Interesting thoughts........ Ken Denny Boston
swampmtn <swampmtn@siscom.net> wrote:I sat down with a table full of Campy parts, determined to discover some engineering reason why certain parts would be anodized while others were not. After a few hours of notetaking, a pattern suddenly jumped-out at me!
Consider the year in which each aluminum feature was introduced (notice what happens around 1958):
approx-1933 three-piece hubset with aluminum flanges - not anodized post-1951 bar-end shifters with aluminum levers - not anodized post-1951 downtube shifters with aluminum levers - not anodized 1951? front derailleur with aluminum housing - not anodized 1955? aluminum downtube shift levers - not anodized 1956 pedals with aluminum body - not anodized post-1956 aluminum seat post - not anodized 1958 all-aluminum hub shells - not anodized 1958 aluminum cranks - ANODIZED 1960 front mech with aluminum clamp - ANODIZED 1967 aluminum derailleur - ANODIZED 1968 aluminum brake levers - ANODIZED 1968 aluminum brake calipers - ANODIZED 1971 aluminum pedal cages - ANODIZED 1973 aluminum headset - ANODIZED 1974 aluminum headset - ANODIZED
Did I miss anything?
Aldo Ross Middletown, Ohio
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