Have had some issues with the horizontal dropouts allowing the rear wheel to drift into the non-drive side chainstay. In the BF Bike Mechanics section, I found a helpful thread here that dramatically improved my success rate at getting this problem to stop.

However, on the Richard Sachs that I restomodded with a 3/9 Ultegra gruppo, this problem reared its ugly head until I finally solved it with a good pair of DT Swiss ratcheting skewers. With these skewers (picture below), I have not had a single instance of slipping even when I purposely ride hard uphill out of the saddle, which was one of the major things that caused slippage.

The skewers are handsome and fit well with a restomod, but, from an appearance standpoint, I don’t see them as a good solution on a bike that you are trying to keep period appropriate.

Which leads me to my question. What period appropriate solutions have people come up with? For example, are there particular period skewers that look right on a period bike and clamp particularly well?

The universal answer you'll get are internal cam skewers. The old classic kind or the updated Shimano style.

I'm surprised those work for you as they don't have any cam action at all. Strong hands!

I think you just find a smooth-looking internally-cammed QR skewer/lever in a high polish or anodized silver finish and call it a day. Shimano made a ton of them, especially as the late-'80s came around and into the early-'00s with then still-silver groupsets. Externally-cammed QR's with that cupped washer are garbage at holding a wheel into a horizontal dropout, so avoid those. They were made when the world had moved on from horizontal dropouts, so it's not the QR's fault as they didn't need to account for those forces.

My RS (horizontal dropouts) did fine with 7700, 7900, and 6800 hubs and matching skewers.

I don't have a slippage issue with forged dropouts, which are thicker than stamped steel ones (And as everyone says, I use internal cam skewers.) But on some of the stamped dropouts, I need to use one of the screw-down theft preventative skewers to get the skewer tight enough to hold the wheel in place.

In a similar situation, I went with DT Swiss. No regrets!

To follow up on what RiddleOfSteel suggests, I did a quick search for examples and this helpful Sheldon Brown article popped up.

Another vote for the older internal cam skewers,but paired with an all-metal Shimano early threaded end.
Much better than the plastic ones with a metal insert.

Yes to internally cammed QRs. Ones with gripping surfaces still in good condition (ie the ridges sharp) are reputed to be better on chromed dropouts I couldn't say. I don't pull any decent internal cam QRs out with my less than massive legs.

Now, chromed dropouts are for vanity and chasing off a demon that very rarely shows its face. (That demon - dropout destroying rust. I've ridden snow and ice bikes into the ground and I could have taken those dropout off, as lousy as they looked, then brazed then into the next bike that was going to lead the same life and they would have served just fine.)

On internal cam skewers - in the '80s or '90s (I don't know the timeline) the design of the cam changed from the shape Campy invented in the 1920s to one that closes the skewer with considerably more force and better resistance to opening accidentally. Well worth having. To my knowledge, Shimano was the first. Campy and most others followed later. I still have a few old Campy NR skewers. I won't use them because 20 year old el cheapo Shimanos keep wheels in place far better. Likewise any all steel Shimano or Quality Bike Parts no-name purchased now. (The nice skewers by both Shimano and Campy of this millennia are sweet to look an and use and hold wonderfully but for the simple job of keeping your wheel where it belongs, those (modern) steel cheapos from reputable companies work just as well.

Edit: Keep the internals of the skewer "head" well greased or oiled. Less friction = more clamping force.

From the SB article, he pointed out that the best interfaces were the ones with steel, rather than aluminum, in the contact points because the aluminum is softer than the steel dropout and won’t bite in properly.

That's a theory, but it ignores how aluminum has a sticky quality.

IME 70's and 1980's chrome steel Campy or Dura Ace 7400 -7402 QR's both did the job admirably. There isn't any need to overthink it, IMO.

In a related vein - do people realize that the peak deflection and chain tension is when you're grunting up a hill in a Granny Gear. Not when you are sprinting in a large or moderate gear

Freddy Maertens has nothing on us geezers.

Are you proposing a new material property?
Otherwise..typical values...
aluminium-on-steel coefficient of friction ~0.6
steel-on-steel coefficient of friction 0.5~0.8

Axle too long so the QRs bottom on it instead of the dropouts?
Or in the old days, a snapped axle.

The only slipping dropout problems I've had were due to too much axle outside of the locknut and spacers. Quick release bottoms out before secure. Much more likely on stamped dropouts.

image shows a milled face dropout.
the reduced contact surface area is not helping obviously.
way back Harlan of Hi-E made a spot mill to help create a mechanical engagement for the hub/ dropout contact region.
yes, cuts through the paint.

I've said this in another thread, but I have had yh opposite experience. Never had a QR skewer slip, but have had many security skewers slip and a few track hubs too. The track hubs were certainly user error; I was newer to bikes and wasn't sure how tight was "too tight." But the security skewers have been a real problem for me, mostly because the small tools (nothing more than an Allen key) don't provide a ton of leverage.

But this is all anecdotal evidence, and now that I think about it, maybe there's some bias at play because a slipped QR in the middle of a ride is an easy fix while a slipped security skewer (without the proper tool in hand) is sure to be a much more memorable experience.

No, I am referencing the existing engineering concept known as "stiction". Aluminum deforms on the surface when compressed into another surface and doesn't like to release. I don't know how that interacts with coefficients of friction since we aren't talking about stuff moving but the threshold that has to be reached first before they can move. Aluminum generally has more stiction, while materials like brass and bronze are known for being "self lubricating". This is probably related to galling as well.

Head over to the hobby store, and buy a bottle of the distressed aluminum paint for WW2 airplane models.

That reduced contact area means that the same skewer torque has higher force per square inch, causing that red ridge of steel to deform more than more surface area would. The net result is that skewer digs in more and deforms the dropout permanently.

In my case, in line with other comments above, it is because the hub's axle was just a bit too wide for the stamped dropouts of the bike I was trying to set up. I'd screw down the cammed skewer as far as it would go, but it did not have enough grasp to stay in place. The security skewers however would clamp it tight.

Stiction isn't the same as the mechanical grip from deformed aluminum.


(original art by the way because its 32 here)

Sure, then why did the wheel slip?

So a geezer like me doing 200W up a hill on, say, a 32/28 puts more torque than a top sprinter like Maertens at 1500+W on a 52/13? Would like to know the math behind this.

Okay, so what is it? I doubt stiction is unaffected by the hardness of the aluminum.

Because the QR was so weak it didn't deform the steel.