Don Wilson asked about the builder of this frame that is currently on auction, and due to finish in a few days time.
The frame is quite attractive and clearly designed to pick up some of Cinelli's influence both in manner of construction and style of finish. It appears to be from the back end of the 70s or early 80s when the particular type of "fast-back" seat stay attachment was in fashion. However unlike many builders who favouredm this style, this builder has gone to the trouble of plating up the top of the seat tube at the rear where the stays are going to be attached, thereby ensuring that the brazing process, during which the seat stay ends would expand, would not cause those ends to "push" into the wall of the tube thereby causing two slight mounds which, when the seat tube is eventually reamed, could seriously undermine the thickness of the tube's wall.It is impossible to discern from the photo but I would guess that the builder would have fusion welded the extra piece of plate to the back of the seat lug and fettled it in, before brazing up the joint.
As for the builder I have never heard of a Tom Bomidge...but such is the gutteral manner of speaking of our fellow Englishmen in the Midlands that it is often impossible to determine just what they are trying to say. So..with this notion in mind, I have interpreted the seller's Tom Bomidge to be none other than Tom Bromwich.
Tom no longer builds frames but, based himself in the Midlands, near Coventry I think, he built for a good many years perhaps twenty or thirty, being very active in the late 70s and early to mid-80s. He built frames that bore his own name but also worked as a jobbing builder for other companies, ans was possibly better known in that role.I think that some of his later work was for the SIRIUS brand, for whom he built some very attractive if straightforward time-trial frames.
I have handled quite a few of his frames, and found them always to be well crafted, if a little unimaginative. However if this REW Reynolds is one of his then quite clearly he was able to raise his game according to the customer's requirements.
There were several other builders who used this type of seat lug/stay configuration including Bob Jackson, Ellis- Briggs, Woodrup, MKM, Bespoke...and these are just northern builders. However it is likely that this frame from a South Midlands based retailer would be from a local builder such as Bromwich.
Just a thought.. there is a Tom Bromwich track frame going through UK Ebay at the moment
Norris Lockley...Settle UK
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