Originally Posted by Doug Fattic

If you were to attach a long rod to an eyelet that is originally part of a steel dropout, it would take a lot of bending force to break it off. In fact it probably won’t break but bend because it is all the same metal. If you were to do the same experiment with eyelets that were brazed onto a dropout, you would discover that it takes less force to break off an eyelet. If you could somehow measure the amount of force used before it would break, you would find out that eyelets brazed with bronze it would take more force than if it was brazed with 56% silver. There are other silver based brazing materials that would take more force to break than the 56% but not as much force as it would if brass is used.

The original question “do you trust a brazed on eyelet” suggests an all or nothing situation. It will last or it won’t. The answer really has to be under what circumstances? There is not a black and white answer. As you can see now it really depends on the chances of enough force being applied to the brazed-on eyelet that might exceed its yield strength. I provided an example of a loaded rack tipping over that did exceed what a properly brazed-on eyelet could withstand. Of course that is an unusual circumstance but it can happen. As a professional builder I have to assume that a customer does not understand the differences between the strength of a brazed-on eyelet and one forged as part of the dropout and they might blame me if a brazed one breaks and then expect me to fix it for free. That fix might include disassembling the bike, rebrazing the eyelet, repainting the area and then putting everything back together again. That can be a several hundred dollar repair that I want to avoid. And I can avoid the problem by attaching a rear rack with a different kind of braze-on. So this is why the answer is not black and white but rather it depends.