Originally Posted by
deathhare
My hubs are from the 80s too and im thinking they didnt have this hi-tech process back then. Same with the campys im guessing.
So...forged?
Previously, on bikeforums.net!
Originally Posted by 11.4
You really have to abuse your hubs to have a problem with Campagnolo hubs. Campy made steel hubs back in the 50's, but they had three-piece bodies and actually weren't all that good. In the 60's they came out with their all-aluminum one-piece Record hubs, which were so good that they were simply adopted into Campy's Super Record line (and not even called Super Record). They were finally replaced by the C-Record ("sheriff's star") hubs. The Record hubs are readily identifiable because they had the elongated oval holes on the flanges rather than the triangular ones on the C-Record. They were made of a softer alloy that resisted cracking better and they were manufactured by a method called spinning. In this method, a thick-walled aluminum tube was put on a metalworking lathe and special tools were pushed against the metal as it spun at high speed. It actually caused the metal to flow (or be pushed -- imagine how clay would move under your hands while you spin it on a potter's wheel). Spinning causes the metal of the flanges to rise up while the central portion of the hub decreases in diameter and becomes very thin. This method has the great benefit of removing stresses and weaknesses from the metal so it's much less prone to breakage (it has many of the same benefits as forging the metal). This is the same method used for Suntour Superbe Pro and Dura Ace 7600 high flange hubs. Campy used this method up until they came out with the C-Record line (the "sheriff's star" track and road hubs), at which point they simply turned the hubs on a lathe. Unlike Phil Wood, which used special high grade aluminum blanks and made their flanges sufficiently strong, Campy used what was frankly pretty cheap aluminum and then machined it more (it wasn't the best of times for Campagnolo). Now the upside is that it was a good bit lighter than a current Phil Wood hub, but the negative was that it wasn't absolutely bombproof.