Oscar Wastyn bikes from the 1960's are around. They look like much more
finely finished Schwinn Paramounts from the same time. He black-chromed a
few, also.
David Feldman
Vancouver WA
> Brian Bayliss said:
>
> [... Albert learned from Oscar and Emil Wastyn in
> Chicago from what I understand,.... I would
> really like to see how the change from "old style" frames (lugs with
> floating headset bearings and clamp-type headsets) to the modern design
> happened. I wonder if early Eisentrauts look like Wastyn frames? Anyone
> have any examples, in real or in photos? Anyone have a Wastyn we can
> check out also? Somewhere in there a major change seems to have taken
> place. Anyone have the Missing Link? Is it big and hairy and leaves
> giant tire prints??]
>
> I think there is more of a continuous change from the 1920s on, driven by
> the frame components available and the demands of racing to begin with and
a
> growing sense of style as time went on. In each era the finest builders
take
> the best frame components and tubing available and modify them to make
> custom type frames. A look at the California catalog I mentioned this
> morning shows the lugs, tubing and frame ends available to Oscar Wastyn
and
> Pop Brennan. From what I have seen at the Wastyn shop the Emil Wastyn
bikes
> are very old time with slack angles. Pop Brennan started with the 68
degree
> Brampton type lugs and forged them into head angles of 74 or so that were
> best for 6 day tracks, dating back at least to the early '20s. The lugs
were
> highly cut away and filed from the rough sand cast originals. My personal
> opinion is that the Oscar Wastyn bikes and subsequent Wastyn built Schwinn
> Paramounts are fairly imitative of the Pop Brennans. After all, Schwinn
> didn't have Oscar endorse the first Paramounts, they had Pop endorse them.
> Post WWII there was an explosion of lugs available, particularily pressed
> and welded lugs that were more nearly net shape than the sand cast lugs,
yet
> still required hand work and offered different styling opportunities.
>
> Certainly the head lugs of a Brennan are artistic, after all he worked for
> Tiffany before building frames, but what is done with them is also very
> functional. It seems that a really refined artistic sense of framebuilding
> didn't take much hold in the US until the 1960's. From what little I know,
> the artistic side of lugwork has much earlier roots in British frames,
> although the British lugwork is often more showy than the quest for
> metalworking perfection that Eisentraut and the US builders followed from
> the 60's on.
>
> I think there is a British-American connection where the Wastyn, Brennan,
> Drysdale functional tradition met up with all the creative British lugwork
> and frame styles to yield the later American style. This combination plus
> the change in frame components strikes me as the "major change" or
"missing
> link" Brian is thinking about. I'll bring my Brennan to Cirque for
> examination by those interested.
>
> Joe
>
>
>
>
>
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