At 05:11 PM 8/21/06 -0500, Mark Stonich wrote:
>It's just not a matter of which side of the pond. It's US bicyclists
>Vs. everybody else. In the *American* Welding Society's brazing
>manual, the term Fillet Brazing does not exist. Brazing is, by
>definition, done with capillary action. If it ain't capillary, it
>ain't brazing.
>
>So the Bilam sleeves would have been brazed on and then the tubes
>joined with a bronze weld.
I wish I knew the exact procedure used, but that may well be it, although I suspect the builder switched to a less eutectic rod to build the fillets. While brazing does indeed depend on capillary action for its strength, most brazed machinery and equipment repairs I've seen have had fillets because the person doing them probably thought it necessary. The bronze "fillet welds" on Clauds and some other frames had to be built up enough so they could be filed down to those nice smooth radii. When I bought my Claud in the fifties, I got the first one up the scale that had "lugs", the New Allrounder. Little did I know it was merely a decorated fillet brazed frame just like the entry level 531 bike, the Jubilee.
John Betmanis <johnb@oxford.net>
Woodstock, ON Canada