Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 9,808
Likes: 1,781
From: Northern California
Bikes: Cheltenham-Pedersen racer, Boulder F/S Paris-Roubaix, Varsity racer, '52 Christophe, '62 Continental, '92 Merckx, '75 Limongi, '76 Presto, '72 Gitane SC, '71 Schwinn SS, etc.
New Star hubs came as original equipment on my Steyr Clubman, a mostly English-spec'd, French-equipped, Austrian-built bike from 1972. They say "Made in France" on both hubs.
The flanges on my 5-piece New Star hubs (and the freewheel threads) are alloy.
All 4 flanges are hat-shaped, surrounding the steel cups just like the OP's original photos (but different than Rancho's 1-piece versions above).
The driveside rear flange itself is threaded for the freewheel.
My rear hub is BSA/English threaded. The original Regina Freewheel is stamped F.I. on the back where a thread designation often appears.
Quoting Peter_B from bikeforums: "The older ones are marked with scratched letters "FI" for the Italian words for "fit Ingles" or English. The later ones have a single groove. No marks is Italian thread."
This freewheel threads freely by hand all the way onto an English Sansin hub, so freewheel is verified English-threaded for sure.
TejanoTrackie was right on about the freewheel threads btw. English freewheels usually thread freely onto French hubs, but French freewheels usually only go on several turns and won't go quite all the way without force.
One oddity with my rear hub is that the drive-side cone has no wrench flats! A defect, I'm sure.
I torqued it up against the locknut/spacer stack using big pliers, as the locknuts were found to be loose.
I also noticed that this well-used hub had a perfectly-straight axle, so it was surely made of very high-grade steel. All the bearings were in good shape so were also well-hardened. Adjustment was easy on these.
The solid rear axle is 26tpi, and the diameter is just 6-7 thousandths smaller than either 3/8" or 9.5mm.
The solid front axle is also 26tpi, diameter is again 6-7 thou smaller than 8mm, but only 3 thou smaller than 5/16".
So, consistency between the front and rear axle diameter's "hole clearance" suggests that both axles here are metric sizes (9.5 and 8mm respectively).
I can't speculate as to the threading pitch of the OP's Q.R. axles. They could be 26tpi or 1mm pitch (25.4tpi)
These hubs feel heavy because of their chromed-steel, 3-piece center sections.
Also, the aluminum flanges do not appear to have a machined finish, just as-stamped, so these were low-cost units.
The dust caps are integral with the flanges, so not removeable.
Last edited by dddd; 03-11-13 at 06:43 PM.