I'm out in Las Vegas, at the Interbike show. Today I had an opportunity to chat with a former Sturmey-Archer executive, now employed by SunRace Sturmey-Archer.
He had lots of interesting tales to tell, having worked for Sturmey-Archer for 33 years, most of that time as head of their Dutch subsidiary.
As Sturmey-Archer was in the process of moving from the old factory to a new location, they had moved about half of the tools and materials when the landlord of the old facility shut the doors on them, because money was still owed him. Without the tools and materials, Sturmey-Archer couldn't produce product to sell, so how could they raise the money? On 3 occasions, loyal Sturmey-Archer employees actually broke into the old factory to salvage critical equipment in hope of getting production going again, but the third time they were caught and had to spend the night in gaol.
It seems that when the deal went down that killed Sturmey-Archer in Nottingham, SunRace had already made a quite generous offer to Derby for the division, in the 10s of millions, but Derby chose to sell to the crooks of Lenark for 30 pounds, because the SunRace offer would have been paid off over a period of months, while the outright sale allowed them to write off all connection with Sturmey-Archer, and made the short-term balance sheets look better. In the event, although the price of 30 pounds was agreed on, only a down payment of 10 pounds was actually delivered.
Over 300 workers lost their jobs as a result of the machinations of the money manipulators. One of the top Sturmey-Archer engineers is now selling sandwiches in downtown Nottingham.
Fortunately for Sturmey-Archer fans, SunRace was able to buy the tools, materials and patents from the liquidators. What was worth moving has been moved to Taiwan, and has been integrated into the existing SunRace factory. There were good deal of set-up problems, because most of the machinery was some 40 years old. Many of the machines are temperamental, and difficult for someone unfamiliar with their idiosyncracies to operate successufully. Some of the machines had to be discarded and replaced, but now things are up and rolling.
3 speed hubs and drum brakes are in current production, with 3-speed coaster brakes to start soon. Later on, the line for 5-speed hubs will be put into operation. These are all the standard designs, and parts will be interchangeable with Nottingham production.
The future of the 7-speed hubs is in some doubt. Sturmey-Archer already was working on an improved design for an 8-speed hub, and rather than go to the expense of setting up production of the 7-speed, they may just go to the 8-speed design, hoping to have it ready to introduce in Sturmey-Archer's centennial year, 2003.
Raleigh and Gazelle were always Sturmey-Archer's biggest customers, and initial production is all going to them for OEM use, so it will be a while before we start seeing Taiwanese S-A hubs in the aftermarket.
SunRace was showing a few variant models, still in the prototype stage:
X-RF3 is an AW with a new, very nice looking alloy shell. X-RC3 is a coaster brake equivalent, based on the AWC, I believe X-RD3 is a three speed with a drum brake.
I asked about quality, mentioning my opinion that Sturmey-Archer quality had been in steady decline since the 1960s, and my hope that, since Taiwanese quality has been on the rise for several years, the change would be for the better, or at least not for the worse. He agreed, and mentioned that in Nottingham, when there'd be a run of parts that weren't quite right, the production department would contact the engineering department, and get an evaluation. The evaluation would be often be, "no, these aren't quite right, but they're not far enough off to cause a real problem, so go ahead and install them." At SunRace, they don't do that. They either match the drawings, or they don't, and if they don't, they're recycled.
Some years back, Sturmey-Archer changed the AW axle. Previously, the axle and sun pinion were two separate parts, with the sun pinion rivetted onto the axle. They later changed to one-piece axle/sun pinion, which required a special grade of steel. Reportedly, SunRace has so far been unable to source this grade locally, so they're importing it from England at considerable expense.
An interesting anecdote from Sturmey-Archer history: Older Sturmey-Archer hubs used metal oil caps. These never sealed all that well. Sometime in the late '50s, they switched to a plastic oil cap. These didn't leak. As a result, Sturmey-Archer started to get complaints about hub shells rusting! The leakage from the old metal oil caps had been enough to prevent rust, but with the plastic caps, it turned out that they had to improve the chroming process!
Sheldon "Footsore In Los Vegas" Brown +-------------------------------------------------------+ | Military conscription is the worst form of slavery. | | A more enlightened age will consider it a War crime. | +-------------------------------------------------------+
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