Pete Geurds wrote: > Not to state the obvious: but they started out as regular 36 > hole small flange hubs with the flanges than riveted on? [snip] > This could be a nice little cottage industry for someone. This is mostly guesswork, but I think in the 50s they didn't have the technology to make all-aluminum large flange hubs. Large flange hubs were most commonly steel hub barrels with aluminum flanges pressed on (Airlite, Gnutti, FB etc).
to which Mark Bulgier replied: It seems to me that the all-aluminum body was MaxiCar's and Prior's claim to fame, but they couldn't make a near-net forging with large flanges, due to the limitations of their aluminum forging technology. (Near-net means close to the final shape, little machining needed) Of course a modern-style one-piece large flange hub could be machined from a solid billet, but that would be inefficient and wasteful. I'm assuming that near-net casting was possible but not considered for a high quality part - probably the aluminum casting technology of the time would have resulted in a weak part or one with thick, ugly sections. So to keep the one-piece AL body and accommodate the fashion of the day for large flanges, Prior and MaxiCar made these riveted-together oddballs. I'm hoping a real cycle historian can correct this or add to it.
In my box of "goodies" is a Real Paramount rear hub. Steel body (with integral races!) and aluminum flanges. The right flange was threaded on, with the same 1.37*24 tpi threads as the cogs. It was then snugged down. The left flange was press-fitted in place, with the spoke holes offset from the right ones. Does my memory fail, or didn't the first generation steel-shel Phil Wood hubs get assembled the same way?
harvey sachs
mclean va