I called Fernando Cuevas. Here is a synopsis of what I found.
Francisco Cuevas started building in 1925 in Spain and built frames until he left Spain for Argentina in 1951. From 1951-1970, he built frames there. In 1970, he moved to New Jersey and worked for Metro Sports for a couple of years, but that didn't work out for him. In 1973 he joined Fraysee. At the time Fraysee was having his frames built by Pepe (Guiseppe) Limongi in France, then they would send them to the U.S. where Fraysee would decal them. Fraysee sent Franciso to France to work with Limongi. Limongi then came back to the U.S. with Francisco and they set up Paris-Sport to build the frames in the U.S. This went on until about 1978-79, at which time Francisco went out on his own to build his own frames. He built until about 1988 when he retired and moved back to Barcelona Spain. Andreas continued to build frames under the Cuevas label until he had a stroke in the late 1990s. Since 1998, Fernando, grandson of Francisco and nephew of Andreas, has built using the Cuevas label. I'll get more information about the current operations from Fernando in an email. I asked a number of questions and here are the answers:
What tubing did Francisco prefer: Reynolds. He built at first using Columbus because he had made a quantity buy of Columbus tubes, but later switched to Reynolds 531. He liked 753 and the initial frames were brass brazed with 753. These did not pass the testing done in England by Reynolds and they told him to use only silver brazing, which he did after that. Fernando believes that there were some 753 frames built in the initial switch period with brass brazing and those might account for the broken frames that John Pergolizzi mentioned in an earlier post (see archives).
What is the coat of arms on the headtube/seatube for Cuevas?: This is a Cuevas adaptation of the Barcelona coat of arms. In the middle ages, the Barcelona area ruler had a yellow flag. On his death bed, he took his bloody fingers and lined the yellow flag to denote that he was freeing four cities/areas from his rule. That became the Barcelona flag--a yellow flag with four red stripes. Nice story.
Why is the X in the steerer? For reinforcement. It goes inside the steerer tube to the bottom of where a normal quill stem would fit, but always below where the headset would tighten. (This puzzled me as I tried to envision a fork where the bottom of the stem would extend into the headset threading area. I suppose it would be possible if the fork were extended above the normal top nut area.)
Did he use a jig to maintain alignment during brazing? No. To this day, steel frames are built using a vise only and then, when cold setting is needed, to cold set after the frame is completed. (The story goes that Francisco was so skilled that he rarely had to tweak his frames to attain alignment.)
I told him about my first Cuevas frame, a silver blue frame with chromed fork and stays with red in the cutouts and gold decals. It was supposed to have been a show bike. Listmember J.D. Edwards now has it in Albuquerque (at least until I can persuade him and his wife to part with it). Fernando remembered the bike and asked me if it had chromed headlugs--which it does. Good memory as that must have been 20 years ago.
Lou Deeter, Orlando FL
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