Re: [CR]Paul Reiss - the craftsman's craftsman.

(Example: Racing:Jacques Boyer)

From: <hersefan@comcast.net>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: Re: [CR]Paul Reiss - the craftsman's craftsman.
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 10:18:17 +0000


Last year I played with gas welding some mild steel (for lug making experimentation) and I was amazed at how easy that stuff was to flow and essentially fillet. But the higher carbon content steels seem to really spit at you when gas welding if I recall. We know that overheating our beloved high quality steel alloys is supposed to be a sin, yet for years in non-bicycle applications welders have used gas welding techniques for joining 4130 which is pretty close to Columbus as I understand. That should be especially tricky. So now I'm curious - I may try gassing some Reynolds to see how it works. But does anyone know if 531 has changed much since the 1930's? And I for one am certainly not going to try building frames that way - just because a bunch didn't break doesn't mean they aren't more likely to fail.

Reiss was gas welding 531 for sure - the Reyhand bike I showed at the Cirque the year before last was a Reyhand that also was gas welded. And nobody caught that at all from what I can tell.

And I'm not aware of Reyhand bikes breaking - but then again, very few are left so who knows.

Mike Kone in Boulder CO


-------------- Original message --------------
From: Fred Rafael Rednor

> Norris,
> Years ago, while doing some aircraft and race car welding, I
> performed a bit of work on straight gauge chrome-moly tubing.
> Occasionally, we would use tubing with wall thickness of about
> 1mm. You must use a _really_ small tip on the torch and be
> very careful about heat buildup.
> Now, my work was merely acceptable, but I did see some real
> masters are work. Still, I never saw work that was so fine as
> to be mistaken for fillet brazing. In fact, for me, that's
> almost unimaginable. For one thing, you have to work in
> sections and - in the work I saw - the points where these
> sections met had obvious overlapping of welding beads. (On my
> own work these were prominent, andI was happy not t oburn
> through the tubes.) Also, you must start in the "crotch" of
> the joints and work outwards. Since this was done in opposite
> directions, there always was some small but obvious overlapping
> joint, even in the work of the masters.
> But you probably already know all this. So I guess what I'm
> saying is that I've seen some nice work on fusion welded
> chrome-moly tubing. But I've never seen anything as fine as
> the work you describe. It's actually difficult to imagine how
> he managed to perform such aesthically perfect work in the
> bottom bracket area.
> Surely you're thinking that it's almost a shame to cover
> this work with paint.
> Best regards,
> Fred Rednor - Arlington, Virginia (USA)
>
> --- Norris Lockley wrote:
>
> > During the short period between returning from France in
> > mid-August and
> > going back next week, I have found it difficult to settle
> > down to a real
> > job of work, so I decided to take stock, so to speak, of some
> > of my
> > ever-expanding stock of bikes and frames.
> >
> > Having spent some time checking over a couple of Bernard
> > Carre-built
> > Sauvage-Lejeunes, once the property of Henri Anglade and
> > Bernard Guyot,
> > I thought it about time to inspect some of my older
> > properties...and a
> > trio of 1920/30s machines came to mind.
> >
> > The first is a 1920s Automoto, claimed to have been a team
> > machine but I
> > have no way of proving its provenance, the second is a 1935
> > Alcyon
> > ex-team bike, and the third one, my only fully-built-up
> > Reyhand
> > Randonneur, the work of the genius framebuilder, Paul Reiss.
> >
> > I have been corresponding with List member Mike Kone about
> > this one, and
> > sending photos of the two decals on the frame, as Mike has
> > the means of
> > reprinting some decals that I might need...With an
> > "old-timer" such as
> > this Reyhand, which was a "barn-find" it is always a
> > difficult matter
> > whether to renovate or not, Sure the frame on this bike has
> > oodles of
> > patina..that is when I removed the caked on road dirt.
> > Luckily there is
> > no rust whatsoever, but in places the chocolate brown enamel
> > has either
> > been rubbed or scratched off, exposing the coat of red-oxide
> > undercoat
> > clinging to the steel tubes.
> >
> > I was curious about the condition of the drive-side chainstay
> > which
> > seemed to show the effects of time more than any other tube,
> > so I
> > decided to remove a flake of paint just about managing to
> > hang on to the
> > rear drop-out. Having dislodged it I decided to rub the
> > drop-out
> > -to-stay junction with some fine wet-and-dry paper to smooth
> > in the
> > junction of paint and exposed steel. So...I know that all
> > this is
> > sacriligeous... but I needed to know.
> >
> > The joint at this point is beautifully profiled..the sort of
> > thing that
> > frame-builders love to shape and form and polish, burnishing
> > the
> > silicon-bronze to a high shine. But...there was no sign of
> > bronze
> > here...just shiney grey steel! My curiosity got the better of
> > me. so I
> > polished away at the underside of the junction of the
> > chainstay with
> > the bottom bracket shell. thinking that, if needs be, this
> > small area
> > would be easy to touch up. No bronze here either, just plain
> > polished
> > steel...as I concluded the rest of the frames joints must be.
> > So it
> > appears that Reiss fusion -welded not bronze-welded his
> > frames. Some
> > real craftsmanship here!!
> >
> > I didn't let my eagerness get the better of me and stopped
> > rubbing and
> > exploring at that point... I have owned, examined and built a
> > lot..a
> > real lot..of lugless frames, and everyone has been joined
> > either with
> > nickel bronze or more commonly with silicon bronze, the
> > fillets being
> > finely radiused to produce a sculptured stress-relieving
> > finish.
> >
> > I know that the 1920s Automoto is fusion welded ie
> > steel-to-steel, but I
> > never even considered that the Reyhand might be..it was
> > always, in my
> > mind, a bronze-welded (fillet brazed) structure.
> >
> > The Reyhand has been completely dismantled down to separating
> > frame from
> > fork, with only the fixed B/B cup and the upper and lower
> > head bearing
> > cups in place.
> >
> > The frame is a 24" Durifort-tubed randonneur with a large
> > built-in
> > pannier rack, and stacks of braze-ons for dynamo, brakes etc
> > etc. and
> > yet it weighs only 4.25lbs. The fork..with its robust
> > twin-plate crown
> > and everlastingly long fork blades tips the scales at
> > 1.25lbs...making a
> > total weight for the ensemble of 5.5lbs.. Absolutely
> > astonishing !!!
> >
> > The weight of the frame leads me to assume that the tubes are
> > of very
> > thin gauge..they are double-butted. So...the question that I
> > ask myself
> > is...just how amazingly skilful does a builder have to be to
> >
> > fusion-weld fine gauge tubes..possibly as fine as 0.9, to a
> > thick bottom
> > bracket shell without "holing" the finer pieces?
> >
> > This is a process that I have never tried when building a
> > frame..and
> > even though I would feel quite adequately skilled enough to
> > fusion-weld
> > up a frame in plain-gauge "gas-pipe" I think I would decline
> > the
> > invitation to try my skills on any tubes as fine as those on
> > my Reyhand.
> >
> > Has anyone on the List come across similar types of
> > construction on a
> > quality frame..or have any of the List's frame-builders
> > risked their
> > reputations carrying out this type of construction?
> >
> > Norris Lockley..Settle UK
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
>
>
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