At 9:30 PM -0700 4/6/09, Derrick Bourgeois wrote:
>For a long time I was under the impre
>ssion that most all spindles used either JIS (most Japanese) or ISO (everyb
>ody else) taper. This recent discussion however seemed to reveal that Campa
>gnolo taper pre-1994, which would obviously include NR and SR among others,
> was not ISO but a proprietary Campagnolo dimension about half way between
ISO and JIS.
>.. Can anyone confirm or deny that the pre-1994 proprietary Campagnolo taper
> existed?
The "half-way" in between standard would explain why Campagnolo spindles mate so well with TA and Stronglight cranks. Considering that Campagnolo's first cranks were inspired by Stronglight's (and perhaps Herse's), it would make sense to use the same "industry-standard" taper. (In 1957, there weren't any other square-taper cranks widely available.) TA, or course, copied Stronglight as well, after their proprietary pear-shaped, cottered BB interface did not sell well.
That makes one wonder when and how the ISO standard came about... But first somebody needs to measure an old NR spindle (or 3, to make sure you don't get an outlier in the tolerances).
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
140 Lakeside Ave #C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com