Greg,
My opinion is that the fork stiffeners are cosmetic for the most part. Just the extra brazing neccessary to braze them will anneal the fork blades much further down than it they weren't there. But , done properly, they do serve to distribute stress differently around the fork blade/crown function. A crown that is straight across all of the way around the blade (like the Masi twin plate crown for example) should have that line interrupted in my opinion. The reason lugs and other parts have irregular shorelines is to eliminate a stress riser where a straight cutoff pipe would create one.
I like fork tangs in general as another tasteful place to be a little artistic and possibly leave a signature piece of work, but I always silver braze the tangs; even if the crown gets brazed with brass. When I use a sand cast Fischer fork crown (like on the Masis) with old dimension Reynolds fork blades, the fit is not good enough for silver brazing the crown on account of the gap the insertion of the fork tanges creates on this particular crown. Therefore, I braze the crown with brass and at the same time braze the tangs with silver. The first time I did this it was experimental; I didn't know if I could get away with mixing the two operations on the same fork. I fluxed the blades and crown and tangs for brass brazing, except for the part beyond the crown that the tangs extend to. I fluxed that part for silver brazing. I brazed the crown with brass as one normally would and when I got to finishing by brazing the tangs, I turned the flame down and switched to silver. The brass temp did not burn or contaminate the silver joint and I was able to blend the two areas together without any trouble or gaps. I was amazed. The best of both worlds to solve a simple situation.
Often, I will modify a fork crown by brazing a long tang to an existing crown and blending it in as if it were part of the original design. as many modern castings do. I especially like this approach on track crowns.
Anyway, I really don't think fork tangs do much if anything significant to actually stiffen the fork.
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA
Hi all,
The current discussion of fork bending reminds me of a question I asked last year that pretty much went unanswered. So, I'll try again. In my small collection of lugged frames, some forks have those brazed-on triangular fork "stiffeners", and some don't. All are handmade, and back in the day, considered high-end rides(P-13,Masi,&etc.) What criteria did builders use to decide whether or not to use these fork stiffeners, & what do they actually do? I personally can't discern much if any difference in fork response.
Well, Happy Holidays to all,
Greg Brooks
Ridgetop,TN