Originally Posted by
verktyg
Here's what Brian Bayless had to say about Masi frames built by Albert Eisentraut:
masi lore, masi frame dates, masi trivia (scroll down about 2/3rds of the way to the bottom)
There are a few more tidbits here:
Masi Dates
From this Classic Rendezvous archives:
The Nedici and Confente story (argument?)
"It was in 1977 that the Carlsbad factory began a transfer to the San Marcos, California facility. During that time Albert Eisentraut built about 50 frames to fill a gap during our move."
The 50 frame number coincides with what someone who worked with Eisentraut told me. He also the mentioned that Eisentraut built a number of different sized frames for Masi that were used just for setting up the frame jigs in their shop in Southern California.
I remember something about the serial numbers stamped into the Eisentraut Masi BB shells were only about 1/8" high????
verktyg
Chas.
The Keith Lippy built frames appear to have the smaller height numerals that denote size and have a different look to the fork bend.
There are slight differences to the seat stay concave caps too, but even that had variations along the Carlsbad production run.
Many of these various contract frames are also painted in "California Burgandy". A late addition color.
A detail all these frames appear to share is that the head tube facing is different. Masi did not use the "standard" 90 degree facing cutters. They used one that placed a slight chamfer to the "flat". By doing so the lug perimeter met the headset better presenting no gap at the perimeter interface.
I saw one unfortunate example on auction long ago where someone had refaced the frame with a standard cutter, cutting away the chamfer and thereby cutting away much lug material... Some folk should not be allowed near cutting tools.
As to the "jig frames". Those came from Italy. Some had errors in design, at least in Mario Confente's view. On the small frames it was the basic design, for the others it was the position of the lower head lug. It was too low. If a regular "length" fork was used the top tube would not be level. This was an issue in Italy too, the very early Gran Criteriums from Italy I have or have examined cheat the brake mounting bolt up, so far as to require a filing of the concave washer to clear the headset. They really need a short reach brake to get the brake pads to fully mate to the rim.
When Eisentraut came to Carlsbad to measure up the jig frames he felt some of them were wrong. Mario was gone so was the real manufacturing data. I am pretty sure he made corrections.
When the bikes underwent a design revision for the then common short reach brakes, short horizontal dropouts and slightly shorter chainstay lengths, the original jig frames were out of date.
In the mid 80's when the bikes moved to the Henry James sourced fittings, the geometry was revised again.