doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Guns and Bicycles

Roy has added BSA who in England are more well known for their motor cycles than guns. They did also make a 4 wheel car; quite rare and I have seen the odd one at vintage car rallies. I'll add Esau Akrills of Beverley, Yorkshire to the list. I had the pleasure of visiting their quaint shop not long before they closed for good. If I recall there was an old cycle mounted above the shop. Lagopus.....

Manufrance 1910 catalog:

Records show that B.S.A. made their first Bicycles in 1869, model "Delta" Perhaps this bicycle may have utilised twist steel tubing?

I apologize for my limited ability to clarify my earlier question.
What I am trying to examine is the parallel development of steel tubing for the bicycle markets with tubes for shotguns.
I imagine that the volumes of tube consumed by the explosion of cycling as cheap transportation (pre-automobile mass manufacturing) would have been a greater force in the development of tube products than shotgun barrels. Fluid steel tube manufacturing, gas pipe and what not, leading as hand hammered tube manufacture was being supplanted.
But I think seamless tubing came after laminate products, and therefore early cycling products may have been laminates.

I am probably wrong, but that's what I imagine as of now, and I sorta hope there is a beautiful Damascus tubed bicycle in a museum someplace that I might enjoy.

Any thoughts?

No I have never heard of a damascus frame on a bicycle. Now how about a pic of your Schwinn tandem? Is it a step through frame?

Voila!
http://www.oldbike.eu/museum/bikes-1800s/1894-2/1894-premier-model-a93-with-helical-tubing/

Don't know how to capture the images.
Edited to add: A steel framed bicycle's weight has not changed appreciably since the 1890's. 27lbs. Alloys on the peripherals (stem, seat tube, etc.)can get then down into the low 20's for a mass produced steel bike, but durability drops off.

I wondered about weight. Wouldn't the machining to create thin laminated tubing need good precision and probable significant expense. Before that 1890's time, were the bicycles mostly high wheels. The mainframe tube may have been fiveish feet long. Might have been quite an effort to weld up, deep hole drill and turn down that length of thin wall laminated tube.

Except for one offs, chances are volume production looked for some other source. There're records of damascus barrel production, I would think it would correlate closely to firearm manufacturing output for the time. Just thoughts.

Remington Arms Co. was another gun maker who made bicycles as well. Back cover of April 1897 Remington Arms Co. catalogue --



They also made sewing machines, farm machinery, and typewriters. Had to use that excess plant capacity from the "Northern War of Aggression" to make something.

Helically welded 'Plain Iron' (pre-Bessemer) barrels were an attempt to improve on "Cast steel" Huntsman hot-rolled crucible steel process of 1742. To form a pipe or barrel, a sheet was folded over a mandrel and the long edge hammer welded.



They tended to split at the seam



W. Ketland 20b SxS flintlock c.1815 helically welded



By the time of the 'Premier' bike, fluid steel by Cockerill, Siemens, Krupp and others was already in common use

Just found this link:

http://www.oldbike.eu/iverjohnson/

Jim