I went and saw Brian Rourke and his builder, Paul Washington in about 1998. Paul first started building frames for Brian Rourke back in the middle 70s. Frames can be tig welded, fillet brazed or lugged and brazed. They are built in a jig and all the mitres are machine cut in Paul's workshop which is a garage at his house. Paul appeared to be a very methodical and fast builder with most operations all jigged up. The Rourke frames I have seen have been very tidy. There may have been a few Rourke frames built not by Paul Washington.
Hilary Stone, Bristol, England
> From: Toni.Theilmeier@t-online.de (Toni Theilmeier)
> Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 16:47:49 +0100
> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: [CR]One more British framebuilder...
>
> ... is Brian Rourke in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs. He has been in business
> for over thirty years, according to his website, and is still building.
> I rang the shop today and they were very friendly and showed great
> interest in hearing about their older products.
>
> I have been put on the trail of an on-topic Record equipped Rourke, and
> right here in Osnabrück to boot; it must have been brought here by a
> British serviceman. Osnabrück has been the second largest British
> garrison anywhere in the world.
>
> I would be very grateful if anyone had more info about Rourke,
> especially with regards to his framebuilding lineage. Thanks.
>
> Regards,
>
> Toni Theilmeier, Belm, Germany.
>
>
> P.S.: In the case of a sudden disruption of an e-mail conversation with
> me, please assume that I have given up the medium and contact me in a
> more traditional way. I am in the trial phase of a last ditch system
> after some others could not stand my constant abusing them.