bulldog1935

Their price is a little better than Compass and a little more than buying direct from Grand Bois
Same with Merry Sales.
Norther on the Sun XCD is a lot better than Merry Sales, though.

KonAaron Snake 

I'd love to see some other proper Italian roadies with brazed center pulls...

rhm

I was in Nomad bike shop in Astoria Queens this afternoon to drop off a couple repaired saddles and pick up a couple more to repair.

One of the latter is a Lamplugh saddle that came off a La Perle bike from 1953. Some of you may have seen it at French Fender Day. The bike is at Nomad now, waiting for its saddle back. But anyway...

It has brazed-on centerpull brakes. I'm not sure of the brand; they are unusual, have a wedge action similar to roller cam brakes. But they mount exactly like centerpull brakes, on brazed-on posts.

Kaze6

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, cantilever-type post brakes had a bad reputation. Side- and center-pull Weinmann Brev and Dia Compe pretty much had the market for consumer-grade rim brakes. They were simple and easy to adjust.

IIRC, there was some brand of bike that had come with post brakes which were a pain to adjust, and that polluted the market for a while. You could find post brakes on GOOD bikes, but there just weren't a lot of good bikes around at the time. To most people Schwinn was "the name brand," and they had WB.

gugie 

Well, there's @jyl's 61 Bianchi Specialissima, which I keep bugging him to get painted or powder coated.

Vintage_Cyclist

Saw these on an eBay auction

bulldog1935

yep, that is special

KonAaron Snake 

Interesting at any rate.

KonAaron Snake 

That looks like what would happen if a Delta brake had a child with a weinmann CP.

T-Mar

The brake that popularized the cantilever design was the Resillion, introduced in 1929. There may have been prior examples but the Resillion was the first with wide appeal.

MAFAC was the first of the modern centre-pull brakes but they did not invent the concept. Philips "central-pull" brakes were popular in the late 1930s and there may have been even earlier examples.

rhm

I don't suppose anyone wants to talk semantics, but lemme point out that "Cantilever" was Resilion's trademark, just as "Central-Pull" was Philco's, but beyond this, these brakes don't share much with the later ones that bear these names.

What aspect of a "cantilever" brake is cantilevered, anyway?

The only thing the MAFAC and later cantilever brake shares with the Resilion (beyond the name) is the fact that the pivot point is below the rim, so the cable pulls up from the outside, rather than the center. The Resilion brake requires an elaborate Y-shaped Bowden cable, while the MAFAC type could be made without Bowden cables at all.

Similarly, the main thing the Philco brake shares with a later center pull design is the pivot above the rim. The cable pulls from the center of the Philco brake, but from the opposite edge on the MAFAC type.

Aside from any of that, Resilion brakes were excellent, though overly complicated to install. Philco's were easy to install, but they were terrible brakes.

T-Mar

Brakes are categorized based on their mechanical concept. The MAFAC cantilever and others followed the basic mechanical concept of the Resilion, that being a pivot below the pad and a lever that protruded outwards beyond the pivot to achieve the mechanical advantage. In effect, the cantilever is a class II lever. MAFAC and others only differed in their execution of the design, with MAFAC redefining how the force is applied to the lever.

It's the same with the Philco. It established the basic parameters of the centre-pull, while MAFAC offered a different execution of the design.

I agree totally with your synopses of the pros and cons of the designs. There is no doubt that the MAFAC designs provided great strides over the set-up of the Resilion and the performance of the Philco. However, from an engineering standpoint, they were both only evolutionary refinements of the basic design. If anything. I would call them different sub-categories.

Filochard

In 1942, Louis Villemus filed a patent for his cantilever brakes later sold under the Lewis brand :

Notice


Louis Villemus was also a constructor and his New Lewis bike won the Grand Prix Duralumin in 1946 :




But earlier in 1938, Narcisse won the Grand Prix Duralumin equipped with Speedy cantiver brakes supposedly made by René Hersé :





Source : Another french classic : 1938 Narcisse | Retrobike

T-Mar

Foot operated cantilever brake, 1896.

old's'cool

...probably a direct development of wedging your shoe between the downtube, the fork crown, and the tire. No doubt by someone with a hole in his sole, and a hot foot.

old's'cool

...no doubt there was a immediate Mark II version, with a pushrod and bellcrank, actuating a symmetrical brake shoe against the other side of the rim.

T-Mar

Centre-pull brake, 1898. The concept of making the return spring (10) perform the additional function of a yoke is interesting. What's not so great is the poor mechanical advantage. Regardless, they do appear to match the OP's requirement for an early, post mounted centre-pull, with the posts being attached to the underside of the crown.

hilltowner

It's an interesting addition to the discussion but I'm not sure it actually addresses the original question as I framed it. I was curious about the current trend for taking old Mafac and Weinmann brakes and mounting them on posts vs. the traditional fork/brake bridge bolt. The idea behind the centerpull you mentioned probably died with its inventor. The current trend really does date back to the constructeur era and that is what I wondered. I am grateful for all of the perspectives that have been shared. It has increased my knowledge and appreciation for cycling history.

T-Mar

Most of what we perceive to be be new, has been done before. Often, the new designs were simply inspired by old ones.

hilltowner

So true. Ecclesiastes 1:9

crank_addict

Seeing the old illustrations above remind of a brake device I had seen in an old catalog. I've searched endlessly to find it again but not much luck. It may have been in a pdf from the English veteran cycling archives and only now want to learn more about it.

I think the catalog was from the 1930's, the device was for most brake designs and perhaps in modern terms I would consider it a brake booster.

It was not like the U frame from the early atb accessory days, rather was a pair of rods connecting to the brake shoe stud / lower brake arm. The other end 'hooped' or sort of a J hook on the back side of the fork blade. Fuzzy recollection and I'm puzzled if or how it was affixed to the fork. Then, also curious how or if it interfered with the brake arm movement. Its possible it just floated on the backside but firmly affixed at the brake shoe mount. Looked very simple but wouldn't call it elegant.

Anyone by chance know of this item?

crank_addict

I'm still researching for the -brake booster- linkage whatever however came across this from CLB circa 1930's. Bowden also offered a similar design.

crank_addict

After reviewing a few early Bowden Brake catalogs, jumped on fleabay and found this 1917 Wonder. Have no clue whether its correct or not, but think its way cool.

avhed

Who has manufactured the braze on fittings over the ~7 decades?
What brands are interchangeable?
DiaCompe did for a few decades and discontinued in recent years.
Compass has taken over since DiaCompe.

palincss

Depends on whether you consider the Ocean Air Rambler "current production" or not. It's standard geometry and it comes with brazed on Paul Racer centerpulls (i.e., the brakes are part of the frameset package). Here's a URL:
https://store.oceanaircycles.com/products/rambler