Classic & Vintage - columbus rifling

Looking up the steerer tube of my 1980 silk hope, I can 3 or 4 vertical ridges (or depressions) going up the tube, maybe 1/4" wide...is that the rifling that indicates columbus tubing?

Sounds like Columbus SLX.

Thanks - the reason I ask is the bike was repainted, and re-decaled with "silk hope" and "Mclean", but no tubing decals. I want to put some on, but also be sure they are correct.

This came up recently on the Waterford forums, and to my surprise the steerer tubes of most of the eighties Columbus tube sets had the helical reinforcements associated with the main tubes of the SLX tube set. The best way to tell if it's SLX is to look down the seat tube with the bottom bracket removed and a light in the BB shell. The five helical reinforcements should be seen in the butted section of the seat tube at the BB shell.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d7/k4drd/Bicycles/SLX-SL-SP.jpg

All columbus stear tubes had this helical reinforcement so as Scooper mentioned you should check the frame tubes.

What about TSX? I always thought SLX had straight ribs and TSX had "rifling".

Thanks. As long as I am pulling the crankset I may as well overhaul it if necessary - all for some $10 decals.
Edit: TSX vs SLX, that is what I need to see if I can determine, or should I just get generic "columbus" decals since I really don't know?

The helical reinforcements (rifling) was introduced in the steerer column of SL and SP tubesets, and was typically 5 raised ridges, but they are only about 1 mm high so kind of subtle, and they spiral...they are not straight. That should leave 5 UNraised areas between the ridges. If you have something other than 5, and you have spiral reinforcements in the seat and downtubes it could be a later tubeset (I'm not familiar with how many TSX used, but I believe SLX stuck with 5) OR it might be a product of Ishiwata/Miyata who produced a multitude of multi-butted and spline-reinforced tubesets...I can't even begin to tell you what the rifling in those might look like.

All the Columbus tube sets have the spiral splines in the steerer tube. SLX and SPX also have the splines at the bb end of the seat tube, down tube and chain stays. TSX has the splines at both ends of the top tube and down tube and again at the bb end of the seat tube and chain stays.

Thanks for the info. :)

Hey, that's my line! Right now I'm leaning towards getting generic "columbus" decals, since a positive ID seems beyond my level of expertise, which is "none".