[CR]Rotraxes and Gillotts

(Example: Framebuilders:Rene Herse)

From: "Norris Lockley" <norris@norrislockley.wanadoo.co.uk>
To: <Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 01:56:59 +0100
Subject: [CR]Rotraxes and Gillotts

I'm really on the spot here! Just how can you, or could one tell the difference between a Rotrax and a Gillott, assuming that all transfers had been removed?

I have a fair collection of both of these brands, none of the frames being more recent than 1956...so I am comparing the differences from that period and standpoint.

I think that it is the style of the seat-stay top-eyes that picks out the difference for me. Gillott often used to use the fairly ubiquitous double-concave-grooved slightly wrapped-over eyes..Hetchins had them, Holdsworth had them..Rotrax didn't use them...or not on any of my frames. otherwise Gillott would use plates, more often than not flat ones and, more often then not, slightly wrapped over.

On the other hand Rotrax seemed to prefer the "chisel-end type" or the "arrow-head type", which were solid steel and appeared to have been hand-filed to shape from the steel bar...but which weren't of course, although the longer three-sided ones might have been filed up from a simple long flat pointed eye with the sides removed.. On the occasion that Rotrax used plated eyes they were smaller and shorter than Gillotts. I have never seen..but bear in mind the period I am discussing.. a wrapped-over top-eye on a Rotrax; they usually attached to the side of the seat lug. I shouldn't have written that because List members probably have 1000s of them.

Fork crowns varied too. though both companies used Ekla regularly, but on the whole Gillott tended to use more decorative ones such as the variation-on-a-theme for the "Fleur-de-Lys" model, and the often elaborately cut out Haden-type two-plate fork crowns used on some track frames. I have never seen a hand-cut crown on a Rotrax.

And then of course there are the fork blades. While Rotrax have elegant blades, Gillott have even more elegantly long curving ones, the curve often starting about two-thirds of the way up the blade...Or at least most of my Gillotts do!

Well then..I've put my head over the parapet....

Norris Lockley...Settle UK