[CR] Early Colnago seat-stay top-eyes

(Example: Production Builders:Frejus)

Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:31:00 +0000
From: "Norris Lockley" <nlockley73@googlemail.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Subject: [CR] Early Colnago seat-stay top-eyes


I fall into the fabricated school of top-eyes on this one...very unlikely to be a casting.

I reckon that the seat stay has received a short pointed stubby top-eye brazed into it. A thicker piece of mild steel plate has been filed to shape and contoured to fit the seat lug. THis has been laid against the seat lug, possibly even brazed into place, and then the seastay complete with stubby top-eye has been silver soldered onto it.

However knowing that Italian builders often like to take short cuts I think that it would have been possible for the stubby top-eye to have been brazed onto the shaped and contoured plate, then the completed top eye entered into the stay..and the whole assembly then silver-soldered..or even brazed with just a little care, onto the seat lug.

The third method would have been to tap the top-eye firmly into the seat-stay, place this against the seat lug with the decorative plate sandwiched or trapped berween the two parts, possibly apply a clamp or wrap some wire around the stays to keep the ensemble close and to prevent it from moving, and then to have brazed the whole lot in one shot.

The design and execution of any of these methods is not earth-shattering..and Ernesto would have been in his creative prime when he brazed up this frame.

Norris Lockley

Settle-Under-The Snow, UK