cudak888 

The Merckx and the Casati look to be the cheapos in the lot. Nice intricate work, yes, but pretty sloppy on the lug filing, and I note that the BB edge on the Merckx still retains some paint - it was never cleaned up at the factory before delivery.

Zunow is second from top in terms of fit and finish, trumped only by the Appel, in my opinion. I find it surprising that the Zunow's paint job seems a bit dull.

-Kurt

bbattle

It looks like it but when I stripped all that blue paint off the brass solder was evident all around. Maybe it was tacked before brazing. Raleigh 3-speed made by Gazelle in the Netherlands. Or maybe just dimpled to make alignment easier.

Bikedued

I found a bike a while back, that had mig weld tacks holding the tubes and lugs together for brazing. It kind of surprised me at the time. For the life of me I cannot remember the brand or model. I can't remember if it was something I flipped, or kept. It looks like they set it up on a jig, zapped some tack welds, and then removed it for brazing.

Another weird one, on my Tenax Prelude? If you look at the lower head tube lug from the head badge, the head tube edge of the lug is lower on one side. It's slanted pretty oddly. The frame isn't crooked there, but it looks like the lug prep guy took too much off one side, lol.,,,,BD


Hey, the Gran Turismo I just got. It was probably made by Miyata, I imagine it also had the head tube and lug one piece as mentioned here?

ricohman

Lug work on my Marinoni.
I like how the builder took time to taper the ends and smooth them.


Lug work on my Nishiki Continental.
Nice but the detail is missing. Sharp ends are very pronounced.

stausty

This is why Italian (and should be the same on French) bottom brackets have the fixed cup turn in the wrong direction. There's only one set of threads and so the cups can only turn in one direction. Obviously easier to manufacture but certainly has it's own set of problems.

soonerbills

Pricey but beautiful lugwork

https://www.waterfordbikes.com/site/t...carvedlugs.php

mkael

Hello What about welds? I already saw the earlier example in this thread. I know this is in cv and the bikes here are mostly from earlier times. But this would fit in here imho

If someone has examples of sloppy welds I would be thankful. I watch out for gaps. And the general aesthetics of the whole work. A skilled welder would probably not do ugly welds. I know the welds can be filed afterwards to beautify things. And the things are under thick paint so you don't see the heat affected zone and so on. Something to look out for ?

cudak888 

I'm not sure if it was typical for French BB's to get threaded all the way through or not - I've had far less experience with them then Italian BB's.

That said, I have yet to see all Italian BB's finished in that same "thread it through" fashion. From what I can tell, this threading takes place after the frame is built (considering the threads tapped onto the seattube). It begs the question as to whether this was the actual BB threading process, or an extra thread cleaning/tapping step that some manufacturers would do to the frames for a good final fit.

Take care,

-Kurt

cudak888 

Expertly brazed/silver soldered, yes; but some of the gaudiest stuff I've seen. They look as if they are varicose veins growing over the frame (I said that earlier in this thread, didn't I?). Yech.

-Kurt

Picchio Special

Anything "intricate" on the Casati is cast-in and didn't require any work at all. Also, I wouldn't really expect to find any "filing" on those typical cast lugs - they're intended to be pull-from-the-box-and-braze items, for the most part. That's the point - minimal hand labor equals more frames per hour.

Scooper

TIG welding has become much more common with the introduction of air-hardening steels, and some framebuilders do absolutely beautiful TIG welding. The mark of a good weld is small, evenly spaced "dimes" that will hardly show after painting. A proper TIG weld doesn't need any cleanup or plastic filler to look great. Here's a sample of well done TIG welding by Carl Strong:

miamijim

Welds dont get any better than this.....

mobile homeless

I have a '74 Raleigh Professional that has excellent lug work that just shows that all the days at ye olde Worksop were not cloudy and grey. The workmanship on my 72 and 74 Professionals, one a Track, is really quite nice. I've seen some sorry examples, however.

martl

The Casati has a three-digit serial-Nr. and a headbadge with a carat-stamp... i really don't think that frames/hour was an issue with that very frame but it is of course a child of its time, when Microfusione-lugs were still quite new.

My own ranking of these 4 frames would be Appel - Merckx - Zunow&Casati , but all 4 are quite fine examples.

Picchio Special

True - the "labor saver" part of my post was meant more generally.

mkael

Interesting thank you all

Those welds look just like the ones one of my bikes. It is a fairly expensive upper level bike (if you stay outside the road forum that is ). That picture makes me happy. My first 'real' bike is a supermarket bike today with components worth multiple what the bike once cost . It's Italian . You probably don't get any cheap steel bikes made genuinly in Italy either nowadays . It came originally with Regina valves too. The welds look way thicker with a few rare spots with too much welding.

cudak888 

Which is the only reason I put it a bit lower in the hierarchy then the others - even though it is quite nice, it doesn't feel as if the builder had as much pride in his/her work then those with filed lugs, etc.

-Kurt

Picchio Special

Or maybe not enough time - he/she might have spent all day at a brazing carousel brazing the same lug over and over, with the carousel moving on if it wasn't done within the prescribed amount of time. When speaking of factory-made 80's frames, "the builder" can be a bit of an anachronism.

sailorbenjamin

Pump peg a half an inch to the left.
I just re-dished the front wheel a little to comensate for the aerodynamic instability.

Spinz

For sure. He has a really nice touch. The uniformity of the puddling in those welds is not an accident. The skill to weld like that comes from having spent many years in the trade. Lp

chrispe

On a related note how do you tell the different brands and model and such of lugs from each other? I can tell Nervex pro lugs when I see them, but other than that I have no clue. Also I find it hard because many seem to have the same (what I consider standard) shape to me.

martl

I see your Strong and raise you one Pegoretti:


https://forum.tour-magazin.de/attachm...2&d=1228684503
https://forum.tour-magazin.de/attachm...5&d=1228609020