Dale,
I am certainly NOT an expert on frame building techniques, however, I
have always been under the impression that silver "soldering" allowed
for cooler temperatures and thus less overheating of tubes. That,
however, is not the point of this post. The heating issue aside, in my
research on the U.S. frame builder Dick Power I found that the American
builders of the 1930's and 40's, especially Drysdale and probably Pop
Brennan, all used brass. Dick Power switched to using silver sometime
in the very late 40's or, more likely, around 1951. He did so in spite
of the fact that silver was considerably more expensive in that you
could buy brass by the pound very cheaply because it resulted in less
clean up of the finished frame. It was easier to remove excess silver
brazing material than is was to remove brass. Now, Dick was not artiste
by any means, and his frames show it. But I wonder if this was, in
general, one of the reasons that silver became the material of choice
over brass. And, did it in fact make for an easier clean up?
Edward Albert
Chappaqau, NY, USA
>>> <oroboyz@aol.com> 09/23/07 10:02 AM >>>
<< If the fillet is added at the time of building the lug, there must
be a possibility of some of the fillets being melted under the torch
flame when the tubes are brazed into the lugs, unless of course the
frame's joints are silver-soldered to avoid melting any of the fillets.
>>
Dear Norris:
I would guess that you hit on it, that Mark will now silver braze those built up lugs.
"Over here" almost every frame maker uses silver for lugs and attachments. Just one element in our higher price structure.
Plus, bike boom writers in cycling magazines and marketing by the likes of Schwinn (Paramount) and more famous individual builders hammered away at silver being so superior and that brass "damaged frames by over heating", yada yada...
It was to the point that it became hard for "pro" bike shops to sell frames that were not "silver brazed" ? Of course the reality was different; Paramounts had such a low percentage silver that it was insignificant (look at those big fat fillets on bridges!) And all those euro frames that the flock worship (Masi, Colnago, etc) used brass. Somehow this was overlooked...
As we know, a skillful, highly experienced frame builder, with that light touch and intimate knowledge of the materials, can do equally well with silver or brass.
?
Dale Brown cycles de ORO, Inc. 1410 Mill Street Greensboro, North Carolina 27408 USA 336.274.5959 http://www.cyclesdeoro.com http://www.classicrendezvous.com
-----Original Message----- From: Norris Lockley <norris.lockley@talktalk.net> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Sent: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 8:21 pm Subject: [CR]Rene Herse Bicycles.Inc
Well after all the recent discussions about the merits of the old and ol der RH framesets, it was good to hear from Mike Kone about the new models t hat he is developing under his management. Not too sure about the "...Inc." though.
I have to admit that I have never seen an older Rene Herse in the "nude" ie devoid of paint and chrome-plating and hence I don't know much about th e lugs that were used or whether Rene and his team made their own. I had al ways assumed that the lugs for the best models were cast ones, and that for cheaper models he used lugs such as Prugnat.
Seeing the "new" lugs in the raw makes me wonder whether in fact Herse m ade his lugs in a similar manner, but obviously without the advantage of be ing able to TIG-weld the two parts together. Presumably he would have had t o fusion weld them..
What puzzles me about the new lugs is the stage at which the bronze -welded fillet is added. If the fillet is added at the time of building the lug, there must be a possibility of some of the fillets being melted under the torch flame when the tubes are brazed into the lugs, unless of course the frame's joints are silver-soldered to avoid melting any of the fillets. The other way would be to TIG-weld the lugs together, braze up the frame's joints and then to carefully add the fillets. I am certain that the second way would be more likely to produce a better junction, particularly if the initial brazing were to be carried out with a rod with a slightly higher t emperature. Without Mike's explanation about the TIGing, the lugs could hav e been thought to be bi-lams.
The other matter that puzzles me is Mike's statement "...it is quite lik ely that the notion of an integrated Brevet bike will make quite a bit of s ense to those who previously were not aware of them". I took my first 50+ m ile ride exactly 50 years and three months ago..and have been involved deep ly in the cycle trade and sport ever since, during which time I thought tha t I had built just about every type of bike ...apart from a roadster or&nbs p;tradesman's bike...but I have never heard of an "integrated Brevet" one. Perhaps I have missed out on a marketing opportunity....but I'm still not too old to learn and have a go.
Norris Lockley...somewhat curiously..Settle Uk
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