Many vintage bikes with stamped dropouts, which are narrower than forged dropouts, were sold with quick release hubs. Many of the lower cost bikes had no derailleur mounting tab integral with the right rear frame end, and had an added bracket to hold the derailleur, usually called a claw. This added some thickness to the dropout. Moving a wheel from a bike with stamped/claw to a bike with forged dropouts often required adjusting the QR skewer, but this is nowhere near a "newby mistake."
With forged dropouts there were (when new, many owners or "restorers" discard them!!!) position limiting screws, that limited the rearward positioning of the axle in the dropout. They can be usefully employed to set the rear wheel alignment in the frame and to fine-tune the effective chain length. To take advantage of these benefits requires some axle stub length peeks out beyond each locknut face. They also help to position the rear wheel vertically, adding redundancy to the clamping force of the QR. They don't help in resisting perhaps the largest force, chain tension while the rider is pedaling hard.
I don't consider a wheel without suitable axle stubs safe.
On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 2:42 AM, M-gineering <info@m-gineering.nl> wrote:
> Carb7008@cs.com wrote:
>
>> Newby mistake?: Quick-release skewers on stamped dropouts? Although it
>> may appear to work, wheel-axle is poorly supported in addition to dubious
>> clamping (read dangerous)? I guess proper method with stamped dropouts is
>> to use nuts?
>>
>
>
> The axle overhang is convenient when putting the wheel back in, but with a
> properly closed skewer it is superfluous: the wheel is retained by the
> axlenut being clamped against the face.
>
> However with thin dropouts there is often nog enough room to include the
> funny spring
> --
> mvg
>
> Marten Gerritsen
> Kiel Windeweer
> Netherlands
>
> _______________________________________________
>
--
Ken Freeman
Ann Arbor, MI USA