Classic & Vintage - what can you tell me about this frameset?

Hi,

I have a mid 80's look frameset that was made from reynolds 753r tubing with Campagnolo dropouts. The color scheme was that of the old Le Vie Claire team (Yellow, Blue, Red and White). I have not seen many like this and I personally think it's a great looking frameset. So what is the significance of the Reynolds 753R tubing and would this frameset be considered a collector's item??



This is a picture of the frameset.. ((This is not my own picture ( I am not able to provide my own because I do not have access to a digital camera), but it is the same frameset.

a picture would help

Definitely a collectable. La Vie Clare replica frame from the mid-80's I guess. Damn... it looks like it's never been built up. Reynolds 753 was top-of-the line tubing.

Honestly, I'd whack you over the head and steal it from you if I could.

That is indeed a very nice frame, a rare mint lugged steel frame from Look. In 30 years of racing and being around bikes I've never seen one! If it's the right size frame for you KEEP IT! One of the reasons 753 tubing is rare is because fewer then 50 frame builders were ever qualified to make frames with it because it could only be lugged with brazing temps of no more then 650 degrees; so Reynolds only sent tubing to those that had been qualified.

The 753 was the top of the line tubing in the mid 80's Reynolds produced, then they had several 753 tube types, the "R" means racing and it was their best and lightest 753. I think...though could be wrong, but that particular frameset had a rider weight limit of 175 pounds.

My next advice is just a personal and howbeit a weird opinion; but I would try to find out the history of the components (Mavic group set is the likely candidate) that Look may have put on it when the French team raced that model and then try to find those components on E-Bay and built it up that way as much as possible. My thoughts on this comes from my classic car background and don't feel a car, or bike in this case, should be bastardrized UNLESS it can easily be converted back.

Did those components come on the bike from Look or did you custom it that way? I would restore it if I owned the bike then ride it on rare occasions, especially to some sort of group ride to stir up some friendly talk.

I have bought this frameset back in the late 80's.. and it was built up... I still have the componenets for it, but everything is off the frame for now.. Here is a short list of the components I had on it:
Mavic SSC Rear Der, and downtube friction shifters, DA 7700 Front Der, DA Cranks 53/39, DA Headset, ttt Stem and handlebars, Ritchey seatpost, and Flite ti saddle, Campy omega 19 rims with American classic hubs..
It was my second bike back then, ansd I really never knew much about it, but I did ride it for over 10 years and have deciced to retire it for now, since I have bought a newer bike to ride.

Those are not the original components. DA 7700 and 53,39 cranks would not have been original nor would a Ritchey seatpost or Am Classic Hubs.

I didn't think so, that's why I asked. But again if it were me I would try to find the original stuff on E-bay.

What size is the frame and would you consider parting with it?

That's a replica of the 1988 La Vie Claire bicycles (no it's not a team bicycle because it's missing the number peg). Correct equipment was Campagnolo C-Record with the Cobalto brakeset, Look pedals, Cinelli XA stem and bar, San Marco Rolls saddle, Ambrosio rims, Sedisport chain, Maillard freewheel, Benotto handlebar tape. If you really want to make it collectible, throw some Huffy stickers on it, to cover the Look decals.

hey ap mech ,shes nice .ive been looking for a la vie claire frame for awhile now. shoot me a pm if your looking at parting ways with it . i just got this nice de gribaldy this week http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=113606&page=4 .its all mavic and not a scratch. i just love the bikes of the eighties.

I have bought this frameset back in the late 80's.. and it was built up... I still have the componenets for it, but everything is off the frame for now.. Here is a short list of the components I had on it:
Mavic SSC Rear Der, and downtube friction shifters, DA 7700 Front Der, DA Cranks 53/39, DA Headset, ttt Stem and handlebars, Ritchey seatpost, and Flite ti saddle, Campy omega 19 rims with American classic hubs..
It was my second bike back then, ansd I really never knew much about it, but I did ride it for over 10 years and have deciced to retire it for now, since I have bought a newer bike to ride.

I run a retirement home for bikes and can just manage to offer yours a place, care is excellent and cheaper than retiring a granny, unfortunately we can not offer visitation rights. :rolleyes:

Yeah.. I decided to build up my frameset again.. So far I have Mavic Front/Rear Derailleurs, Mavic Retro friction Shifter, C-Record Cranks, C-Record brake levers and Delta brake calipers, TTT Synthesis stem, TTT SL Bars. I am using an old wheelset I had laying around Shimano 600 with Campy 32h Omega 19 rims. I have just bought a C-Record Areo Seat post and a San Marcos Regal Ti seat. So as soon as I get it, it will be also installed. So my next item is probably going to be a Campy wheelset..
So here is a photo of my Look... what do you think??

One of the reasons 753 tubing is rare is because fewer then 50 frame builders were ever qualified to make frames with it because it could only be lugged with brazing temps of no more then 650 degrees; so Reynolds only sent tubing to those that had been qualified.

You are right that builders had to pass the test,and silver brazing was used,but the silver used in bike building is a higher temp hard brazing material.

Sidney, not sure about 753 tubing, but only two brazing materials were ever used in lugged construction, silver and brass, with silver being the lowest temperture brazing material which is why most custom lug frame builders today use silver. So I'm not sure what you were trying to say in your post.

Well frozey,there is hi temp and low temp silver for joining tubes. The hi temp stuff is used in bike frames and has a melt point way above 650. Less than 850 is considered soldering, not brazing. Try google, it's your friend.From Bohemian Bicycles, brass brazing rod melts at about 1700 and 56% silver brazing rod at 1240*....AFWIW, it's sydney

The Waterford website has a section devoted to the history of the Schwinn Paramount, and here are some relevant comments regarding Reynolds' requirements for certifying framebuilders using the 753 tubing:

Reynolds introduced the heat-treated version of their 531 tubeset - 753 - in 1977. With 753, Reynolds added several requirements for builders to use 753: Most importantly, any builder who wanted to use 753 had to certify with Reynolds. In addition, Reynolds placed several other restrictions on the brazing of 753 including tight temperature limits and a prohibition against chrome plating. 753 was offered in unprecedented wall thicknesses - a .4 mm wall for both top and downtubes. This allowed lighter bikes to be built than had ever been allowed in the past.

and

Later in 1992, Paramount Design Group began developing the Reynolds 753 version of the OS tubeset. Reynolds 753 is the heat-treated version of its famous 531 tubeset. After years of experience Reynolds had developed the most consistent results from the use of OS tubing. Although 753 had been offered since the latter 1970's, Schwinn's brazers had never submitted to Reynolds certification tests. When they finally did in 1992, the results came back consistently as the finest examples of silver brazing in all their years of testing.

Well frozey,there is hi temp and low temp silver for joining tubes. The hi temp stuff is used in bike frames and has a melt point way above 650. Less than 850 is considered soldering, not brazing. Try google, it's your friend.From Bohemian Bicycles, brass brazing rod melts at about 1700 and 56% silver brazing rod at 1240*....AFWIW, it's sydney


OK now you have me really confused...happy? Just kidding; so are you saying that 753 have to be soldered and not brazed due to the lower temps involved with soldering? If so how strong is a soldered joint compared with a brazed?

OK now you have me really confused...happy? Just kidding; so are you saying that 753 have to be soldered and not brazed due to the lower temps involved with soldering? If so how strong is a soldered joint compared with a brazed?

Its the term applied to the process, silver is 'soldering' and bronze is "brazing'. You're still heating the materials. Course at the varying temps of working with the materials, they do react just a bit differently. The strength of the joint is determined by a number of factors, less on the actual joining silver or bronze.
One is how well the tubes are 'mated' to each other - the tighter the stronger. Then tube prep is all important. Contaminants left on the tube surface are a big buggaboo, as are contaminants introduced during the soldering or brazing. It would seem to be simple to keep the whole process pristine - but not so.
In the late 70's and early 80's I took to the torch in an effort to do small repairs and brazeons on my and my friends frames. After some 'experimenting' on practice tubes, I was able to get to the point of doing some reasonable clean small dropout repairs and adding/removing/replacing brazeons. At that point I figured I knew what I was doin - WRONG ! I think I popped for 5 tubing sets from the Proteus folks (lived in Annapolis area at that time) before I finally threw in the towel, with a new unbounded respect for those who put out the wonderful structures we ride..
Building steel frames is not only artisan work, but also painfully dependent on a sense of the materials you;r working with, unrelenting precision and fastitious preparation. It will bring the 'Monk' out of anyone who hopes to be successful.
Anyway, Brazing, at the higher temps, takes the tubing to temps that can create changes to the characteristics of the steel, if the framebuilder isn't careful. The lower temps of silver soldering have less of that possible issue - but silver is hard to work properly with and having an absolutely clean join and fillet is really critical.
Either way, a good braze or solder means the tubing pieces themselves, and their tight fit to each other, determine how strong the joint will be.
Would be nice to hear from a real 'profi' framebuilder, like e-richie or others, and get the skiiny straight from the proven egg-spurts.

I think we're getting hung up on semantics. I sent the following e-mail to Reynolds Cycle Technology through their website:


I have a question about building frames with the 753 tubeset. Waterford, Courtney and other builders use the term "silver brazing" at 1150-1200° F, but your website says, "The temperature when joining the frame has to be kept relatively low, and we recommend silver and the use of lugs for this operation. As the use of a silver solder requires special skills, Reynolds have introduced a certification procedure for builders..." and "For many years the only recommended way to assemble a frame was by fillet brazing or brazing with lugs, and this was the way 531 frames were constructed. When Reynolds introduced 753, due to the nature of the material, these tubes needed to be low temperature silver soldered."

Are 753 tube frames "soldered" or "brazed"? Thanks.

I received the following reply from Reynolds:


Stan.

First, we no longer manufacture 753, as the product has been superseded by the stronger, easier to assemble 853.

As 753 lost strength when heated to temperatures 850° C (braze temp) and the tube was thin, we said the material should be silver soldered, and as it was a more skilled operation, we asked the builder to prove he could do it.

Silver solder is used at around 550° C (close to the 1150-1200° F temperature you quote).

In welding terms, 550° C is low temperature.

Terry

It looks like American frame builders use the term "silver brazing", while Reynolds uses the term "silver soldering" to describe the same operation.

Soldering is technically the incorrect term, as soldering temperatures are well below the 850° C Reynolds is quoting.

http://www.answers.com/topic/brazing

Funny, they even mention "silver soldering" as a colloquialism. Anyhow, most people seem to use the term silver brazing, and mean the same thing.

I can't help but follow up on what cyclezen said about frame building, and recommend that everyone should build themselves a frame at least once if they get the chance. My building career is limited to self administering electroshock therapy while tig'ing a frame at UBI. Still totally a worthwhile experience, although unless you want to see just how many times in 1 day you can electrocute yourself*, and have a butt ugly tig'd frame to boot, stick with brazing.

* note: lack of skills gets your elecrocuted, not the process itself.

OK now you have me really confused...happy? Just kidding; so are you saying that 753 have to be soldered and not brazed due to the lower temps involved with soldering? If so how strong is a soldered joint compared with a brazed?It's real easy frozey...753 was silver brazed at temps much higher than the 650F figure you used.

Soldering is technically the incorrect term, as soldering temperatures are well below the 850° C Reynolds is quoting.

I agree, but someone should so inform Reynolds. :D

The English call it soldering, and they made up the language. Of course, we know that it is really brazing, though...

The English call it soldering, and they made up the language.
True enough, although I can't quite figure out why they insist on throwing extra vowels into words like "flavour", "colour", "aluminium", etc. They also have a penchant for referring to corporate entities in the plural, as in "As the use of a silver solder requires special skills, Reynolds have introduced a certification procedure for builders..."

Puzzling, what? :)

Mercian bicycle manufacture out of England does something I never heard of, they heat the frame tubing in an open hearth, then while it's in the hearth they bronze braze it. They claim that by doing that the frame is:

"we believe this reduces the possibility of overheating the tubing, unlike a welding torch which can be too harsh in the wrong hands. Open hearth brazing, in our experience, is much kinder to the lightweight metal tubes and also means that should a frame tube be damaged in use, we can undo the braze and replace a single tube meaning your frame gives you many years of pleasure."

You can read about this at: http://www.merciancycles.com/craft.asp

Is this open hearth brazing make sense or just a bunch of mumbo jumbo?

Hi,

I have a mid 80's look frameset that was made from reynolds 753r tubing with Campagnolo dropouts. The color scheme was that of the old Le Vie Claire team (Yellow, Blue, Red and White). I have not seen many like this and I personally think it's a great looking frameset. So what is the significance of the Reynolds 753R tubing and would this frameset be considered a collector's item??



This is a picture of the frameset.. ((This is not my own picture ( I am not able to provide my own because I do not have access to a digital camera), but it is the same frameset.


Holy Mackeral!!!! I've lusted after that frameset since 1986! Where did this picture come from? For that matter...does anyone else have any more photos of these bikes?! :eek:

So here is a photo of my Look... what do you think??

Your bike looks really nice - hope you enjoy riding it.

Solder...braze...not that important, someone needs to give the bike some love