Who rode a gas-pipe bike in the 70s?

[zhaxiaqiu]

 

[zhaxiaqiu]

令人惊讶的是，这东西 只有 9 个。3 公斤裸体

 

[bagpuss]

Would be very bendy at best, foldable at worst

Add a boiler and you have the ultimate steam punk ride .flex as you go .

 

[Freeman]

Not sure I remember any low-rent bikes of lugless construction growing up as a child. Some Peugeots maybe. I would have thought lugless was one step up as the tubes have to be more accurately mitred. Lugging easily hides poor mitring and therefore is more conducive to the quickest and cheapest manufacturing

It may have been a form of construction unique to low-end USA-made bicycles, but the tubes were not mitered, they were simply stuck into holes in the other parts, the bottom-bracket, head-tube etc., and welded or fillet-brazed in place. There could be no less labor-intensive, and therefore no cheaper method of construction. Especially in the case of the wire-welded bikes, the factory line worker could probably be trained in minutes. I worked in a metal fab shop doing production wire welding before, and I know it takes no more skill than squirting flowers with a garden hose, once your foreman has adjusted the voltage and feed-speed of the machine.

 

[Freeman]

Almost all frames were lugged before Welded Frame Construction mass-production in the 80s-90s.

Any non-lugged frame much earlier than that in the uk would probably be something special.

See above, leave it to the USA to find the cheapest way to do something. The bikes of Huffy, AMF, Cleveland Welding etc. were just heavy metal tubes stuck into holes drilled in things such as bottom brackets, head tubes etc., and welded/brazed in place, no mitering required. If the cheap bikes in Britian and Europe all had lugged construciton, then I guess that is what you have to go with there.

 

[Freeman]

Wondering if anyone has anyone actually built a frame out copper gas pipe tubes.
Left un painted it would look quite something.

A company in the USA recently offered copper-plated bicycle frames, to cash in on the various upscale fashion trends in fixies and "steam punk" I am guessing.

 

[Nob]

A company in the USA recently offered copper-plated bicycle frames, to cash in on the various upscale fashion trends in fixies and "steam punk" I am guessing.

Copper coating does look good

 

[ferrus]

See above, leave it to the USA to find the cheapest way to do something. The bikes of Huffy, AMF, Cleveland Welding etc. were just heavy metal tubes stuck into holes drilled in things such as bottom brackets, head tubes etc., and welded/brazed in place, no mitering required. If the cheap bikes in Britian and Europe all had lugged construciton, then I guess that is what you have to go with there.

I remember in the early days of MTB there was quite a lot of prejudice in the U.K. about the TIG welded frames coming over from the ’States. With our heritage of fine lugged and brazed building a lot of folk saw it as shoddy and inferior, along with unicrown forks, sealed bearings etc.
BS obviously, but you still hear some people recommending lugged frames for heavy duty touring on the assumption that they’re inherently stronger. Of course a lug can hide a multitude of sins - terrible mitred joints, braze penetration etc

 

[bikeworkshop]

See above, leave it to the USA to find the cheapest way to do something. The bikes of Huffy, AMF, Cleveland Welding etc. were just heavy metal tubes stuck into holes drilled in things such as bottom brackets, head tubes etc., and welded/brazed in place, no mitering required. If the cheap bikes in Britian and Europe all had lugged construciton, then I guess that is what you have to go with

The cheap European stuff was made
"on The Hearth"

The lugs would be in the furnace until red hot, the plain "gaspipe" tube ends held in the heat until likewise, then pushed into the lug along with (maybe) some flux and brass, which would melt and flow from the heat.
Just a few seconds per joint.

The whole main frame would be assembled like this, almost no need for movement from the assembler.


The back end would have the stays crimped onto a stamped dropout, 3mm? The dropout jaw slope allowed for inaccuracy.

The top of the seatstays squashed flat and back in the hearth with the front end for another blob of braze.

The whole thing put onto a flat table and bent into "alignment"
Job done.
I heard some people could make a dozen or more a day - dirty smelly work.

 

[jim haseltine]

A company in the USA recently offered copper-plated bicycle frames, to cash in on the various upscale fashion trends in fixies and "steam punk" I am guessing.

Falcon built a couple of copper plated bikes for the 1980 Milan Cycle Show. A road bike and track bike, both 531 and fully-kitted throughout with Super Record. I saw them in the factory showroom before they were packed for transport and pointed out what nobody else had seen - the left pedal on the road bike had somehow got out of the Campagnolo factory with a right hand cage fitted to it. Even when he was fitting the toe clip and strap the guy who built the bike hadn't noticed.
Because the copper plate reacted to skin oils and showed every finger print they decided to clear coat the frames but it didn't last long on the polished plating - even though the bikes were never ridden and spent most of their time either on display stands or in the showroom within 6 months or so the coating had started lift around the BB and dropouts.