I do not agree that sheet metal parts are more complex, more time-consuming to produce or to maintain, or more expensive than their cast equivalents. Sheet metal manufacture and assembly can be very cheap and reliable, its only a matter of economy of scale. I'm guessing that Huret had the technology and the volume.
As an extreme example, any soldier would pick a sheet metal AK47 over a cast aluminum M16 ... at any time during the last 50 years.
Most Huret rear derailleurs were reliable and could take a lot of abuse. They simply did not function as well as slant parallelogram derailleurs when they became available. When the average slant parallelogram became cheaper and lighter as well, Huret could not compete.
On the other hand I'd pick Huret's Challenger front derailleur as the 'best' front derailleur of all time.
Regards, ____________________________ Amir Avitzur R"G, Israel
-----Original Message----- From: joebz@optonline.net [mailto:joebz@optonline.net] Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 3:12 AM To: Harvey M Sachs Cc: Classic Rendezvous; aldoross4@siscom.net; avitzur@013.net Subject: Huret's sheet metal methods
Harvey said: [The Atala] ... had some odd Campy sheet metal derailleurs - a material Campy never mastered as well as Huret.
I think Huret was the unequaled master of sheet metal. All the Campy sheet metal stuff was junk and Italians hate the compromise of cheap stuff anyway. "If your stupid/cheap enough to buy it, whose fault is that" is the basic attitude. Suntour gave up on sheet metal with the "Skitter" and became the masters of economy castings. Simplex went from elegant metal to elegant plastic and back.
The Lambert Suntour copy was the bottom of sheet metal. Few survive today. Not many survived a week of use, then the rest got tossed when Suntour enforced its patents. The nadir is the Campy Gran Turismo. Talk about big hat, no cattle.
I bet the Huret stuff was a nightmare to assemble though and they spent more on that than Suntour spent on casting molds plus assembly by a factor of two if not five. Basically, more parts = more assembly cost, a lesson I learned bitterly as an engineering intern putting together a prototype modular telecom equipment rack for Bell Labs. When a fairly good bike mechanic has to spend eight hours to put something together- you have a problem.
Joe Bender-Zanoni
Great Notch, NJ