Tied and Soldered

[Peter Cole]

[email protected] wrote:
> On 12 Feb 2008 01:12:21 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>
>> Carl Fogel writes:
>>

>>> All the references that I've found and posted claim that people
>>> thought that tying and soldering strengthened wheels and stopped
>>> spoke rattling.
>> Well that's false because cross-laced spokes don't rattle either
>> interlaced or not. I think that comes from folks who didn't visualize
>> what occurred with long radial spoke failure. That's why the
>> motorcycle web site is interesting.

> There are plenty of references to tying and soldering before 1900.
>
> I can't find any that mention the safety theory that you think is
> obvious.
>

Looking at this collection of photographs I was hoping to see some
evidence of spoke tying. What struck me was was how virtually all of the
old high wheelers seemed to have radial spoking. From the photos it
looks like cross spoking didn't come into fashion until the advent of
the pneumatic tire.

I did see one photo which seemed to show clear evidence of tying, but it
was from 1976:

http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/1976tour/regviews/1976tour7.jpg

 

[[email protected]]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:16:17 -0500, Peter Cole
<[email protected]> wrote:

>[email protected] wrote:
>> On 12 Feb 2008 01:12:21 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>>
>>> Carl Fogel writes:
>>>
>
>>>> All the references that I've found and posted claim that people
>>>> thought that tying and soldering strengthened wheels and stopped
>>>> spoke rattling.
>>> Well that's false because cross-laced spokes don't rattle either
>>> interlaced or not. I think that comes from folks who didn't visualize
>>> what occurred with long radial spoke failure. That's why the
>>> motorcycle web site is interesting.
>
>> There are plenty of references to tying and soldering before 1900.
>>
>> I can't find any that mention the safety theory that you think is
>> obvious.
>>
>
>Looking at this collection of photographs I was hoping to see some
>evidence of spoke tying. What struck me was was how virtually all of the
>old high wheelers seemed to have radial spoking. From the photos it
>looks like cross spoking didn't come into fashion until the advent of
>the pneumatic tire.
>
>I did see one photo which seemed to show clear evidence of tying, but it
>was from 1976:
>
>http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/1976tour/regviews/1976tour7.jpg

Dear Peter,

Short answer . . .

Tying and soldering was common on tangent highwheelers before Dunlop
patented his pneumatic tire in late 1888.

The lovely old photos in the Wheelmen's highwheeler gallery aren't
good enough to show details like tying and soldering.

Yes, most highwheelers were radial, not tangent--that's the other
problem with the Wheelmen's highwheeler gallery. And most tangent
highwheelers appeared late, not early. Here's an 1888 tangent
highwheeler, tied and soldered:

http://www.eriding.net/media/photos/transport/vintage_bikes/040930_cbr_mp_his_trans_vb_518.jpg

Long answer . . .

I'm working on a ridiculously long post about early bicycle wheels
with excessive details and links on such details.

The current problem is that I'm wallowing in hordes of early "English
Mechanic" annuals that for some reason don't show up directly in
Google Book searches, which show only 1878 and 1893 (some kind of
Google indexing problem).

One example of why it's taking so long is going through gallery after
gallery (the Wheelmen) to check details.

Here's the short current section on that:

18?? Two unknown highwheelers with tangent lacing from Wheelmen
highwheeler gallery:

http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/highwheel/regviews/highwheel17v.jpg

http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/highwheel/regviews/highwheel9v.jpg

I count 16 radial laced classic highwheelers in the two-page Wheelmen
highwheeler gallery, an 8-to-1 radial-to-tangent ratio that doesn't
include a few photos where you can't tell how a classic is laced.
Here's the site:

http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/highwheel/highwheel1.asp

Time to go back to lookinging into the vexing question of why the hell
they nickel-plated many highwheeler spokes out to the tied and
soldered (or brazed) crossing, but used enamel on the rest of the
spoke.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

 

[[email protected]]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:16:17 -0500, Peter Cole
<[email protected]> wrote:

>[email protected] wrote:
>> On 12 Feb 2008 01:12:21 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>>
>>> Carl Fogel writes:
>>>
>
>>>> All the references that I've found and posted claim that people
>>>> thought that tying and soldering strengthened wheels and stopped
>>>> spoke rattling.
>>> Well that's false because cross-laced spokes don't rattle either
>>> interlaced or not. I think that comes from folks who didn't visualize
>>> what occurred with long radial spoke failure. That's why the
>>> motorcycle web site is interesting.
>
>> There are plenty of references to tying and soldering before 1900.
>>
>> I can't find any that mention the safety theory that you think is
>> obvious.
>>
>
>Looking at this collection of photographs I was hoping to see some
>evidence of spoke tying. What struck me was was how virtually all of the
>old high wheelers seemed to have radial spoking. From the photos it
>looks like cross spoking didn't come into fashion until the advent of
>the pneumatic tire.
>
>I did see one photo which seemed to show clear evidence of tying, but it
>was from 1976:
>
>http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/1976tour/regviews/1976tour7.jpg

Dear Peter,

Oops! Sorry, I noticed as soon as I posted my reply that it lacked the
comment on your photo above.

Yes, that photo looks at first as if the outer spokes are tied and
soldered.

But they probably aren't.

What looks like huge tying and soldering is probably just an optical
illusion. The two most-nearly-parallel spokes blur together in the
picture where they begin to meet.

The length of what looks like tying and soldering is much too great.
(They _could_ be tied and soldered, but the small bulges wouldn't be
visible in that particular picture.)

You have to squint at a lot of dreadful old photos before you get a
feel for the tiny little bulges at the crossing.

Here's a good example of how small the ties are. If you look at the
small top picture of the safety bicycle, you can't see any ties. The
next picture down is bigger, but you still can't see any ties. Keep
paging down, though, and the close-ups of the rear and front wheel
show the tying and soldering perfectly.

http://www.auctionflex.com/showlot....d=&lotsortorder=timeleftasc&pagenum=6&action=

Similarly, it's hard to tell radial from tangent lacing on giant
wheels. Even the slightest parallax can make a radial look like a
tangent at first glance.
Cheers,

Carl Fogel

 

[Peter Cole]

[email protected] wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:16:17 -0500, Peter Cole
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> [email protected] wrote:
>>> On 12 Feb 2008 01:12:21 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>>>
>>>> Carl Fogel writes:
>>>>
>>>>> All the references that I've found and posted claim that people
>>>>> thought that tying and soldering strengthened wheels and stopped
>>>>> spoke rattling.
>>>> Well that's false because cross-laced spokes don't rattle either
>>>> interlaced or not. I think that comes from folks who didn't visualize
>>>> what occurred with long radial spoke failure. That's why the
>>>> motorcycle web site is interesting.
>>> There are plenty of references to tying and soldering before 1900.
>>>
>>> I can't find any that mention the safety theory that you think is
>>> obvious.
>>>
>> Looking at this collection of photographs I was hoping to see some
>> evidence of spoke tying. What struck me was was how virtually all of the
>> old high wheelers seemed to have radial spoking. From the photos it
>> looks like cross spoking didn't come into fashion until the advent of
>> the pneumatic tire.
>>
>> I did see one photo which seemed to show clear evidence of tying, but it
>> was from 1976:
>>
>> http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/1976tour/regviews/1976tour7.jpg
>
> Dear Peter,
>
> Oops! Sorry, I noticed as soon as I posted my reply that it lacked the
> comment on your photo above.
>
> Yes, that photo looks at first as if the outer spokes are tied and
> soldered.
>
> But they probably aren't.
>
> What looks like huge tying and soldering is probably just an optical
> illusion. The two most-nearly-parallel spokes blur together in the
> picture where they begin to meet.

Probably right, I thought the guy might have used twine.


>
> The length of what looks like tying and soldering is much too great.
> (They _could_ be tied and soldered, but the small bulges wouldn't be
> visible in that particular picture.)
>
> You have to squint at a lot of dreadful old photos before you get a
> feel for the tiny little bulges at the crossing.
>
> Here's a good example of how small the ties are. If you look at the
> small top picture of the safety bicycle, you can't see any ties. The
> next picture down is bigger, but you still can't see any ties. Keep
> paging down, though, and the close-ups of the rear and front wheel
> show the tying and soldering perfectly.
>
> http://www.auctionflex.com/showlot....d=&lotsortorder=timeleftasc&pagenum=6&action=
>
> Similarly, it's hard to tell radial from tangent lacing on giant
> wheels. Even the slightest parallax can make a radial look like a
> tangent at first glance.
> Cheers,
>
> Carl Fogel

Yes, I noticed the parallax issue.

Did you see this:
http://tinyurl.com/228zn6

That EBay bike has radial front & crossed rear -- is that typical?

or this:
http://tinyurl.com/2zfqhd

Old catalog on EBay, showing a cross laced ordinary & some radial
safeties. Funny how the sales numbers are given to prove ordinaries
"have not gone by" (1893), which more demonstrate that they in fact have.

I scanned through the Project Gutenberg "Around the World on a Bicycle"
(1887) text:

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/awbv110.txt

for references to spoke maintenance, but he had nothing to say other
that he carried spares.

 

[[email protected]]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:01:59 -0500, Peter Cole
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Did you see this:
>http://tinyurl.com/228zn6
>
>That EBay bike has radial front & crossed rear -- is that typical?
>
>or this:
>http://tinyurl.com/2zfqhd
>
>Old catalog on EBay, showing a cross laced ordinary & some radial
>safeties. Funny how the sales numbers are given to prove ordinaries
>"have not gone by" (1893), which more demonstrate that they in fact have.
>
>I scanned through the Project Gutenberg "Around the World on a Bicycle"
>(1887) text:
>
>http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/awbv110.txt
>
>for references to spoke maintenance, but he had nothing to say other
>that he carried spares.

Dear Peter,

The pictures that I've seen usually show the tiny rear wheel matching
the big front wheel--both tangent or both radial--so that's an
interesting picture.

One possibility is that the highwheeler had its front or rear wheel
replaced at some point with an unmatched version.

Since there was practically no stress on the tiny rear wheel, it would
be odd to beef it up with a stiffer tangent lacing while leaving the
front wheel radial.

But it could just be an example of who-cares. That is, there were lots
of early safeties that mixed radial and tangent wheels.

***

That Victor ad is one that I don't have--thanks!

It's even better than most because of the desperate marketing nonsense
that you point out.

A few years later, Victor was doing the same thing with safeties,
insisting that the bike boom wasn't collapsing and that they were
offering last years models cheap because--because--well, they closed
their doors the next year--here's a very long post with links to a big
Victor catalogue and cruel commentary:


http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/msg/138678dcac07d8c3?&q=carl+victor+bike+boom

***

As for the tangent lacing on the Victor highwheeler in the ad, Victor
began selling tangent laced higwheelers around 1885, tied and soldered
from the get-go. I'll be including some scans about that from G.
Donald Abrams "Collecting & Restoring Antique Bicycles" when I get my
big early bike-wheel post off the ground. (Right now, I'm hunting with
considerable frustration for nephew-John-Starley's letter about how
the Rover was intended for hill-climbing, not safety.)

***

No, there's next to nothing about highwheeler spokes by Stevens in
"Around the World" (online) or in "Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle" by
"Karl Kron" ~1884 or "An American Cycling Odyssey" by Hayes in 1887.

Here's an old post with some long quotes and details out of the first
two books:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/msg/5b7e0fb043b34b81

(The "spoke-vise" was just the old name for a spoke-wrench.)

Kron actually mentioned using twine and string (and wire), but he used
them to tie the wheel to the rim:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/msg/930c7b462f8f2555

***

Oops! The sun is out, it's over 40F, time to escape on my bicycle.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

 

[[email protected]]

Peter Cole writes:

> Did you see this:

http://tinyurl.com/228zn6

> That EBay bike has radial front & crossed rear -- is that typical?

> or this:

http://tinyurl.com/2zfqhd

> Old catalog on EBay, showing a cross laced ordinary & some radial
> safeties. Funny how the sales numbers are given to prove ordinaries
> "have not gone by" (1893), which more demonstrate that they in fact have.

I suspecty that the bicycles shown are replicas, ones that an ancient
of those times would recognize instantly as such and not originals.
Fopr some reason, replica makers cannot replicate the antique they are
emulating, but always make physiacal and styling changes that they
frrl the originator failed to include. THis is glaringly and sadly
obvious in the auto world.

> I scanned through the Project Gutenberg "Around the World on a Bicycle"
> (1887) text:

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/awbv110.txt

> for references to spoke maintenance, but he had nothing to say other
> that he carried spares.

I think ther4 is more information in Andrew Ritchie's "King of the
Road" than I have found on the web.

http://tinyurl.com/yw27rm

Jobst Brandt

 

[[email protected]]

Peter Cole writes:

> Did you see this:

http://tinyurl.com/228zn6

> That EBay bike has radial front & crossed rear -- is that typical?

> or this:

http://tinyurl.com/2zfqhd

> Old catalog on EBay, showing a cross laced ordinary & some radial
> safeties. Funny how the sales numbers are given to prove ordinaries
> "have not gone by" (1893), which more demonstrate that they in fact
> have.

I suspect that the bicycles shown are replicas, ones that an ancient
of those times would recognize instantly as such and not originals.
For some reason, replica makers cannot replicate the antique they are
emulating, but always make physical and styling changes that they feel
the originator failed to include. This is glaringly and sadly obvious
in the auto world.

> I scanned through the Project Gutenberg "Around the World on a Bicycle"
> (1887) text:

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/awbv110.txt

> for references to spoke maintenance, but he had nothing to say other
> that he carried spares.

I think there is more information in Andrew Ritchie's "King of the
Road" than I have found on the web.

http://tinyurl.com/yw27rm

Jobst Brandt

 

[[email protected]]

On 15 Feb 2008 23:38:11 GMT, [email protected] wrote:

>Peter Cole writes:
>
>> Did you see this:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/228zn6
>
>> That EBay bike has radial front & crossed rear -- is that typical?
>
>> or this:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/2zfqhd
>
>> Old catalog on EBay, showing a cross laced ordinary & some radial
>> safeties. Funny how the sales numbers are given to prove ordinaries
>> "have not gone by" (1893), which more demonstrate that they in fact
>> have.
>
>I suspect that the bicycles shown are replicas, ones that an ancient
>of those times would recognize instantly as such and not originals.

Dear Jobst,

The Singer photos on eBay show details of what looks like a typical
Singer highwheeler (Uncle James Starley got his start making sewing
machines):
http://tinyurl.com/228zn6

The Victor ad on eBay is clearly authentic--I have links to quite a
few similar ads and am delighted that Peter posted the link, since
it's a great Victor ad:
http://tinyurl.com/2zfqhd

Perhaps you meant Peter's other link, which wasn't included in your
post, this 1976 Wheelmen photo?

http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/1976tour/regviews/1976tour7.jpg

If so, there's not enough detail in the pictures to tell much of
anything. You can tell from the survivor's list that only 7 out 26
riders who finished were on replicas/reproductions:

http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/1976tour/survivors.asp

Considerable carnage is involved in riding antiques:

"Did you know that during the 12 days of riding, riders accumulated
over 17,365 total miles and the average miles ridden per rider was
668? The youngest rider was 16 and the oldest rider was 68, with 32
being the average age. There were 8 riders who fell, one breaking an
arm while another broke both. Another rider chipped an elbow and
another chipped a hip bone. A total of 6 riders were taken to the
hospital. Incidentally, the bicycles suffered some damage too. There
were 25 tires rewired or replaced, 60 broken spokes, 6 broken pedals,
10 loose cranks and 5 other miscellaneous breaks!"

http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/1976tour/survivors.asp

Cheers,

Carl Fogel