RE: [CR]Shift lever stop on frame - is it needed?

(Example: Bike Shops)

From: "Mark Bulgier" <mark@bulgier.net>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: RE: [CR]Shift lever stop on frame - is it needed?
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 12:14:23 -0800

harvey sachs wrote:
> I used to grind out a little lever catch from a bit of
> hardened cut nail, just because the shape could be made
> nice. Then braze it on...
>
> (glad to finally learn that it's called a lever
> catch. Is this a great list or ??)

At one shop I worked at in the early 80s we called it a zit. Not nearly as elegant as Lever Catch but quite efficient linguistically.

We would take a piece of 1/8" diameter mild steel rod (a foot or so long so as to have a nice "handle"), lay it on the bench with the end hanging over, and add a tiny bit of flux and silver to the end. Then hold the pre-silvered end against the bottom of the DT (a bit off-center to miss the gap in the shifter clamp) and heat briefly until the silver melted. Clip the rod off ~1.5mm from the tube and sand the end pretty with 80 grit cloth, et viola, a small violin! No, I mean voilá, a zit! The whole operation took less time than it takes to read this description, and no jigging, but still too time-consuming for many mass-produced bikes.

It would often happen that the point where the shifters go is beyond the butt, into the thin unbutted part of the downtube, so any brazing there should be done as quickly and at as low a temperature as possible. So those who did no brazing there at all sometimes touted this as an advantage - they were leaving the frame full-strength there. Frames with shifter braze-ons do sometimes crack there, or buckle there in a crash, so it's not completely theoretical. I don't think I ever saw a frame fail at the zit though - it's such a small amount of heat compared to shifter braze-ons.

Mark Bulgier
Seattle, Wa
USA