Kurt,
I've never seen a failure in a seamed head tube either. That was just a snide FYI remark about the sanctity of "ALL Reynolds" frames.
Reynolds sold head tube stock in 3 foot and 20 foot lengths but it was probably nowhere as cheap as 20 foot (6 meter) lengths of cheap seamed tubing.
The only problem I've ever seen with seamed head tubes was when someone installed new headset that required a deeper relief on the ID of the tube. That sometimes caused alignment problems because of the seam, all of which could have been resolved by refacing the head tube.
Many of the bikes that I've seen that have wooden dowels in the steerer also had sleeved tubes too.
Apparently the sleeves worked for many years but I always looked at it as a very cheap, crude way of doing things!
Chas. Colerich Oakland, CA USA
Kurt Sperry wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 2:36 PM, verktyg <verktyg@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> One other thing, many "all Reynolds" or "all Columbus" production frames
>> were not "ALL"! As shown above, many French makers used cheap sleeved pipe
>> for steerers plus a lot of builders including some of the top names used
>> cheap seamed tubing for the head tubes!
>>
>
>
> Cheap seamed headtube = not likely to ever be a problem I'd expect.
> The primary load path at the bikes head is from the bottom HS race
> onto the down tube with the head tube mostly just locating the top HS
> race and steerer relative to the lower and providing a small degree of
> lateral location bracing for the top tube. How many head tube
> problems has this list seen? Steerer tubes OTOH are a whole hell of a
> lot more potential concern. That (and the fork) are maybe the worst
> parts on a bike to cut corners. Use a cheap seamed head tube, top
> tube or perhaps seat tube or seat stays and it'll probably never be an
> issue- or at least a safety issue. If one has to go off tubeset spec,
> those I reckon are the logical places to save.
>
> Kurt Sperry
> Bellingham, Washington
> USA