Stamped dropouts
 

Ok, so forged dropouts are best. But are stamped dropouts always less?

The photo is from a mid-80's Zebra Sport before overhaul. The main tubes are DB cromoly; the fork is hi-ten.
When I pulled the fork off to redo the headset I found the steerer tube was stamped Ishiwata.
That leads me to think the main tubes are also.

Despite the stamped drops, it's a decent rider.

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/l...cus/zebra1.jpg

There are exceptions to any rule. ;)

I seem to recall seeing forged dropouts on a hiten frame... admittedly it was DB hiten frame, but a heavy weight none the less.

i have a hi ten gitane with stamped drops. it rides nice. the catalog says it weighed 26pds new but that is probably an exaggeration of lightness.

have a trek with 531main tubes but the fork is stamped ishiwata and is hi ten. so you never know for sure if they use the same brand for both.

I see it as a question of chronology. Few bikes from before the 60's had forged dropouts, so you really can't learn much about an old frame from the fact that it has stamped or cut dropouts. Today even very cheap bikes have forged dropouts with integral derailleur hanger, so you can't learn much from that either. During the 70's and 80's there definitely was a period when forged dropouts meant a good frame and stamped ones meant a cheap one, but even then it's a rule of thumb kind of thing that can have lots of exceptions.

+1 One of the most notable of 70's exceptions - the Raleigh Super Course

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...2-Green15a.jpg

Yes, stamped DOs are considered by most as a step dpwn from forged ones, but in some cases, other than the lack of adjustment screws, they're not really that far a step down, function-wise, like the one in your pics. at least they took the effort to stamp out the triangular window to lighten it a bit and make it look more attractive (May I say more like forged DOs) and nicely brazed on to the stay tips with nice dome ends instead of just crimped on or welded on. Fundtionally they should work pretty much as well as forged DOs except for maybe making it neccessary to screw in the skewer nut a little farther in because stamped DOs are thinner than forged ones. I had a Peugeot PH10S in the 80's with almost identical looking stamped DOs and they never gave me any problems for the several years I rode the bike. Most people also never noticed that they were stamped unless I told them they are.
One thing I never really heard of is a stamped DO failing on a rider from cracking as some forged ones do (Suntour forged rear DOs seems to have done so more often than others). Stamped DO will most likely bend instead of crack and it will take a quite a bit to do so as the material is most likely high tensile steel.
Only thing that I can think of that can kill staped DOs is rust, but a bike must have to be really super rusty all over to have it get to that point anyway.

Chombi

The real drawback of stamped droputs during this era, is the implication that the stays and/or forks, as applicable, are hi-tensile steel and therefore heavier.

Given the era, I'm a bit surpised that the stamped dropouts are mated to a CroMo DB main triangle. Plain gauge CrMo main tubes would be more typical for the period.

This is what I know and think about drops.

Generally, there are three kinds, with different quality levels offered in each - Stamped drops, forged drops and forged/machined drops. There can be a blurring of lines between the three. Those three categories are in climbing quality order.

Of course, I could be wrong.

My Mikado has interestingly odd fake forged stamped drops

T-Mar, my error on the DB part. Checking the frame sticker, it just says "chrome molybdenum."

+1

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4116/...3c0b9a7c_b.jpg

It's not an exception. The dropouts are stamped because the stays are hi-tensile steel. Only the main tubes are Reynolds 531 on the Super Course and then they are only plain gauge. At best, it was a lower mid-range frame for the era and it could be argued that it was upper, entry level.

I was only inferring that it was good.

Mid 80s high ten steel stays and fork, claw derailleur hanger, nutted rear axle, straight gauge cromoly main tubes, galvanized spokes = near entry level bike. By the mid 80s, most of these features were upgraded once you got a couple of bikes up the product line.

I believe that the Gran Sport of the same era--which was the next model up from the Super Course--also used stamped dropouts, except for a couple of years around 1970, when I've heard (though whether correctly or not I can't say) that they used forged Zeus dropouts. As far as I know, the Gran Sport frames were full db Reynolds frames, including Reynolds forks and stays. That would seem to be an exception to the "rule" that stamped dropouts indicate hi-ten forks and/or stays.
Unless I'm wrong about the Gran Sport tubing. It's possible--wouldn't even be the first thing I've been wrong about today.

I think you can't be all wrong because it seems the Gran(d) Sport(s) had a little diversity in tubing and DO's depending on when it was built. - Not all that surprising really when you consider they couldn't even settle on a(n) name(s). ;)

Mine has forged DO's (below) and a "Butted Forks-tubes & Stays" Reynolds label. But I've heard that others were not full 531, &/or had stamped DOs.

It is another good bike regardless.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...rtsDropout.jpg

my 531 dawes galaxy has stamped dropouts and my carbolite/hi-ten campania concourse has forged ones.

Are those the rumored Zeus dropouts? Or something else?

I didn't see a trademark on them so I don't know who made them.

Those are forged? They look stamped to me, but what do I know.

Auchen's GS dropouts are 3D stamped, not the forged Zeus drops.

The big hoopla surrounding the Zeus drops is that they had an integral derailer hanger, while the stamped drops did not.

-Kurt

Thank you Kurt.
(These had me fooled because the ones on my other Raleighs are just flat, and these were pretty smooth and dimensional.)