On an article about the Cinelli type B that was first imported
into Japan in 1958 , a Japanese famous framebuilder asserted that
it was made with a torch and a hearth. He recognized that the
large area of tubes were filed to remove the scale. He wrote
Cinelli used torch and hearth till 1967-8 .
Takao Noda
Hachioji, Tokyo, Japan
> In a message dated 5/21/01 5:29:23 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> bob.reid@btconnect.com writes:
>
> << Know your breed - see this article >>
>
> Thanks Bob for that scan...
>
> That is a neat albeit cursory report of the basics of British
bike building
> of a bygone era..
>
> Interesting in a few areas; odd that they mention that
specialty bikes use
> bronze and silver to allow a lower temperature.. apparently
unaware that
> bronze and brass are the same and use the same temperature
range. I wonder
> if and when the silver joining compound was used, was the open
hearth method
> was utilized? Seems hard to imagine silver (if a decent
percentage of actual
> silver) could be controlled in such a method. But no mention of
hand held
> torches. Certainly some builders of the immediate post-war era
advertised
> that they used silver; Harry Ferris comes to mind in the 1950s
and Stan Pike
> later were known to use silver on their frames.
>
> That also raises the question in my mind if anyone still uses
the open hearth
> "coal gas" method? Is it correct tom assume that the open
hearth method was
> used by larger concerns doing higher production, and that the
small, one man
> or so shops used hand held torchs? I have heard that Mercian is
the last
> practitioner of the open hearth approach. Anyone know if that
is still the
> case?
>
> And while we are wondering, I hear no mention of earlier
Italian frame makers
> using the open hearth method. The Custom Bike book tends to
categorize some
> of the builders interviewed as to methods and as I recall only
British
> builders are identified as using the open hearth....
>
> Dale Brown
> <A HREF="http://www.classicrendezvous.com/main.htm">Classic
Rendezvous</A>