The story I heard was that this developed after WWII, when Italy was rebuilt under Allied, mostly US, occupation. I have no idea if that is true, but if it is, that would mean that pre-WWII, Italian bikes used threading different from what we now call "Italian". That should be easy to check out as a number of list members have pre-WWII Itallian bikes. How about it guys? Were Italian bikes from the 30's threaded "Italian"?
Regards,
Jerry Moos Big Spring, TX
Harvey M Sachs <sachshm@cox.net> wrote: Classic English, French, and Swiss threading are internally consistent. English (such as 1.370x24) is in inches and threads/inch. French/Swiss (such as 35 x1) is in mm, diameter and pitch.
But Italian is different, like 36x24, meaning 36 mm diameter and 24 tpi. Now I can understand the archetypal "Giacomo" doing this with a war-surplus South Bend lathe with a US lead screw and gears (which is what I learned on), but why would such a thing have become a national standard? Anyone know the history? I'm not suggesting it's better or worse, just weird. And I'm not talking about off-topic ISO stuff, either!
This came up when I was sorting the old Campy BB cups in the box , so I could send a couple to another CR lister...
Obviously there are at least three possible kinds of responses: rational, plausible, and funky-but-not-politically-incorrect. It might surprise those who know me, but I'm really most interested in the first category.
harvey sachs
mcLean va