Quite a few frames have been built over the years lugless with silver solder. The early Thanet Silverlights were built lugless - Thants had less trouble with joints coing undone than tubes tearing especially where the seat tube and down tube were joined to the bottom bracket shell - this is quite different to the standard BB shell method of attachment. In the 1980s Ernie Janes who had built many of the early frames at Thanets showed me a conventional frame built lugless with silver - it was one of several he had built for himself and I think his son. The fillets were much smaller than on a conventional fillet brazed frame. And about four or five years ago I bought a 753 aero tubed Raleigh road frame - this was built lugless with silver as there were no suitable lugs and its fillets are a similar size to the ones I have seen on early Silverlights and on Ernie's frame. It is certain that Raleigh with its close links with Reynolds and the development of 753 that the silver solder used was suitable for the job. Only about 50 sets of the 753 aero tubing were made according to Mike Mullett who worked at Raleigh SPD operation in the late 70s when the tubesets were made - and Raleigh only used about 25 of the sets... At least one set has been built up by Argos here in Bristol I believe.
Hilary Stone, Bristol, England
> From: gpvb1@comcast.net
> Date: Sat, 03 Dec 2005 19:43:32 +0000
> To: Steve Leitgen <sleitgen@charter.net>
> Cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: Re: [CR] modern KOF fillet brazed builders
>
> What percent silver was your wire? What brand and part number? How did you get
> your miters good enough to use silver? Without any lugs, the gaps would be
> even more critical. How did you build a fillet with high-silver-content wire?
> That sounds a bit fishy to me, unless the silver content was actually quite
> low.... Professional framebuilders, what say you?
>
> Greg Parker
> Ann Arbor, Michigan
>
> -------------- Original message --------------
>
>> Seeing as how I have a fillet silver brazed Columbus KL frame I did 25 >
>> years ago still in my basement the answer would be yes, you can fillet
>> braze with silver. If I remember right you need a higher sliver content
>> brazing rod. The stuff was thicker and didn't flow as well as standard
>> 60-40. It did flow smoother than brass. Less cleanup filing. Also had a
>> lower flow temp so didn't cook the columbus tubing. Columbus apparently
>> doesn't do well over 1450F.
>>
>> Hope this helps.
>>
>> Steve Leitgen
>> La Crosse, WI
>>
>> On Dec 3, 2005, at 11:57 AM, gpvb1@comcast.net wrote:
>>
>>> Gaaaaah! A dagger to me aged heart! Don't say silver-solder! Claaaass!
>>> Claaaass! Sister Mary Elephant says please pay attention! ;-)
>>>
>>> Frames are brazed. They are not soldered together. Plumbing is
>>> soldered.
>>> And Dursley Pedersens don't count, so there! I don't believe that they
>>> are soldered anyways, so neener, neener, neener!
>>>
>>> I'm also not aware of any silver brazing wire that you can
>>> fillet-braze with. Has that changed recently?
>>>
>>> Greg Parker
>>> Ann Arbor, Michigan
>>>
>>> Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 11:26:09 -0500
>>> From: Angel Garcia
>>> To: CLASSIC RENDEZVOUS
>>> Subject: Re: [CR] modern KOF fillet brazed builders
>>>
>>> The high end Moser TK2 bikes are fillet braze construction using
>>> silver
>>> solder (tubeset is Deda 16.5 EOM steel).
>>> Angel Garcia
>>> Verona, Italy
>>>
>>>
>>> On 12/3/05, rodk3d@comcast.net wrote:
>>>
>>>> All this talk of fillet brazing has me wondering who the modern KOF
>>>> fillet
>>>> brazed builders are. 3 modern builders that come to mind are David
>>>> Kirk,
>>>> Jeff Lyon and John Slawta, I'm sure there are many others. What do you
>>>> owners of newer fillet brazed frames think of them overall?
>>>>
>>>> cheers,
>>>> Rod Kronenberg
>>>> Fort Collins, CO