Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2016
Location: Cambridge UK
Posts: 854
Bikes: 1903 24 spd Sunbeam, 1927 Humber, 3 1930 Raleighs, 2 1940s Sunbeams, 2 1940s Raleighs, Rudge, 1950s Robin Hood, 1958 Claud Butler, 2 1973 Colnago Supers, Eddie Merckx, 2 1980 Holdsworth, EG Bates funny TT bike, another 6 or so 1990s bikes
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Cheap ingredients
Having restored Britidh bikes from every decade in the 20 th century you can't help but notice the decline in the quality of the metallurgy from the 1900s to the 1980s. Especially so from the 1960s onwards .By the late 1980s it was all crap. Not as bad as the Chinesium we get today, but the rapid decline began from the early 1980s.
From a steel POV it appeared to be the reduction in chromium added to the alloys at the forging end. Certainly the appearance of deep rust began then. Power coating didn't help but a pre WW2 bike left in a damp shed for 60 years was in much better shape than a 1980s bike left for a decade.
Working on the more modern frames became a nightmare compared to the much older bikes.
Worn out presses didn't help to be sure. The clapped out presses Strumey Archer sold to the Taiwanese when they folded in the UK nearly destroyed the brand name before the new owners realized what was causing their quality problems, but for me it was always rust and steel.