"I found myself fascinated by the the pictures, on a couple of levels. Mark Bulgier had written:
> I don't know what they thought they were accomplishing with that odd cotter
> design other than making the crank and cotter harder to make, and not
> interchangeable with standard parts - can anyone think of any advantage to
> that, other than cool looking?"
The effect of the design is to make the included angle of the cotter's wedge much larger than the few degrees of standard cotters. This should make release much easier, at the cost of having the bolt end actually possibly do some work to hold things together. To my mind, something poingantly satirizable as British design: an elegant solution that involves some hard machining (with pre-CNC tools), but solves a very minor problem for those with know-how and/or proper tools (getting cotters out).
As far as the tubular aspect goes, the ovalizing is nice, and I hadn't seen that before. But, built-up tubular cranks were available Back Then. At the Baltimore vintage ride last fall, someone had a pair of Williams (British), and I have a pair of Duprat, which are tapered, slender, and just lovely eye-candy.
Wishing Dale and all my other friends and colleagues suffering from the shared passion a most wonderful New Year, yr. obdt. svt,
harvey sachs mcLean va ---------------- Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2004 10:12:43 -0700 From: Chuck Schmidt <chuckschmidt@earthlink.net> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: Re: [CR] Wanted Information on Unusual Cotterless Chainset Message-ID: <3FF45509.1634E5AD@earthlink.net> References: <Law11-F686mBySsxVY600004949@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Precedence: list Reply-To: chuckschmidt@earthlink.net Message: 15
Mick Butler wrote:
>>
>> Spotted today outside our local cycling cafe was a 1960 lugless Jack Taylor
>> with a Wedgelock cotterless chainset. British made does anybody have
>> anything on these chainsets please. A Very Happy New Year to everybody and
>> plenty of luck and laughter in 2004. From a soaking wet England.
>> Best wishes and be lucky. Michael Butler Huntingdon UK.
>
>
Mick, here's pictures from Marks archives:
http://bulgier.net/
Here's a post from CR archives at: http://search.bikelist.org
=============================================================================
Archive-URL: http://search.bikelist.org/
These are one version of the Wedgelock cranks made in Horsham, W Sussex around 1960-2. The earlier version of Wedgelock cranks were aluminium with steel axles - I will try to take some photos of the ones I have as well as some original literature I have. They were nothing to do with the GB company. They were made in very small numbers.
Hilary Stone, in muggy Bristol, England
>> Anyone know these cranks? Made with a piece of fairly thick wall ovalized
>> tubing, brazed at the ends to machined pieces for the pedal thread and the
>> piece that attaches to the cottered axle.
>>
>> http://bulgier.net/
>> http://bulgier.net/
>>
>> I got 'em from Martin Coopland who thought they were GB wedge lock cranks,
>> from the late 50s or early 60s, but he wasn't sure.
>>
>> I don't know what they thought they were accomplishing with that odd cotter
>> design other than making the crank and cotter harder to make, and not
>> interchangeable with standard parts - can anyone think of any advantage to
>> that, other than cool looking? (Works for me!) Differentiates their
>> product I guess, but I'd better be very careful not to bung up those
>> cotters.
>>
>> I'd especially like to hear if they have a reputation as death cranks, 'cuz
>> I think I'd like to put these on a bike to ride.
>>
>> Mark Bulgier
>> Seattle, Wa
>> USA