The screws and nuts about a machine should be provided with sharp, deep threads, and work easily though not loosely. A maker can almost always be judged by the kind of screws he cuts. The nuts and screw-heads should be case-hardened and be neat and square on the corners, and not rounded by the nickel polisher. In all cases where it is practicable some device for preventing the nuts from coming loose, or being entirely lost, is a great boon; this point will have to be looked after now since complicated machines are becoming more popular. The device generally used on the outer end of pedals should become more common, especially on tricycles, tandems, and chain Safeties, where there are so many parts. A good practical jam-nut has never yet been invented, and the cycle-builders are therefore not to blame for not having provided some means against loose nuts generally.
In the matter of saddle and other springs, we are somewhat at a loss for a guide; there is not so much carelessness in quality of the steel used as in the tempering, and in this the buyer has again to rely on reputation and observance of other machines of the same make. The quality of leather often used in saddles is simply an insult to the judgment of the fraternity, and if we will go on in blindly taking any and everything that is offered, the imposition will continue. If buyers scrutinize closely, the makers will be proportionately careful, thus making it harder for unscrupulous tradesmen to foist poor work upon the market, an evil which has existed and will increase as the industry advances.
ABOUT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN MAKERS.
One of the most frequent questions asked by the would-be purchaser of either a two- or three-wheeler is, “What make shall I buy?” And before he settles down to a matter of comparison between individual firms he must first settle whether he will buy an English or American mount. This difficulty is, however, of less importance than he is apt to imagine, because, beyond all question, there are wheels good enough for any one made in either country. The chief trouble will lie in choosing between the different makers, especially if he concludes to try an English wheel. This, as regards the English builders, arises from no general lack of capability among them, but it is simply due to the fact that the industry is so much more widely disseminated there than here. That is to say, there are so many more factories already established and new ones starting there, that, as a natural consequence, some incompetent people, with inadequate plant and machinery, will be certain to creep into the field. This is a temporary condition of affairs as between the two countries, for it will not be long until the same conditions will apply here in America. Now, the reader might infer that we condemn new and small makers, but by no means is this so. There are many small shops that turn out the best of work, some of them do not make the entire machine, but purchase many parts from manufacturers of specialties; but, as a general rule, it is a little safer to buy of a larger concern, that makes, as nearly as possible, the entire machine. This will apply in any line of business, especially if the buyer is not an expert in judging of the goods. On the other hand, there is this fact to contend against with the larger manufacturers,—when they make a mistake at all it is almost sure to be one comparable to the size of their business. In the small shops an error will be discovered more quickly, and, as a rule, will be rectified before many machines go on the market.
In America the larger concerns are so vastly predominant over the small that the buyer has only to decide between articles of established reputation; the American factories do not seem to have ever been small. In a large majority of cases there are certain peculiarities about the machines which not only settle the matter nationally, but as to individual makers. Some little point at once takes the eye or the heart of the buyer, and that settles it all; and perhaps it is best it should be so. Nationally considered, the English have had much larger and more varied experience in the cycle industry than we have had; they have more experts in the line and are nearer to the fountain head of supplies, particularly in regard to tubing, and no matter how soon we on this side may have tube-works, it will be some time before we can depend upon them. The English have taken advantage of their good fortune, and, together with the natural precedence in this art which we all agree has been allotted to them, they have gone ahead without the erroneous veneration generally felt in favor of their grandfather’s method, which has blinded them so often in their advancement in other arts. It was a marvellous sight to the writer to see a bicycle firm, flush with the times in all their work, in a factory almost nestling against other places devoted to making fusee watches with “Granddaddy winding-apparatuses,” making watch-cases by gradually punching them into a conical cast-iron cavity, cutting alleged screw bezels with a chaser in a lathe pulled back by a hickory spring, and such eocenic appliances.
In Coventry there stood, wet and rusting in an old botanical conservatory, one of the finest of American watch-case tools, which some ambitious English watch-maker, in a fit of sanity, had taken over; but his men could not, or probably would not, use it. Yet a great cycle firm had just bought, and was using, one of the very finest Brown & Sharp lathes, merely, I suppose, to make sure that no Yankee should get the better of them in tools. This is not an admission on their part that all English tools are immature affairs; they need not admit anything of the kind, for among the number of tons of cast iron in a twelve-inch screw lathe which you see in every cycle shop, a small part of one ton, at least, is fixed to do some work, and accurate work at that. It was a fortunate thing for our mother country in the cycle business that it was clogged by no fettering precedents or mediæval rules of mechanics. The English cycle-makers are abreast of the times in their line, and there is no better illustration of the total absence of all effect of surroundings upon this great industry than the fact that the lightest cycles in the world are made with such ponderous tools. It must have been a great feat, in view of their proclivities for substantial machinery, to shave off the last superfluous ounce in a bicycle. In short, it has been impressed very forcibly on the writer’s mind that the famous Yankee ingenuity is simply unchained English genius. In our heated discussions as to whether the American manufacturer, with a higher rate of wages, could hold his own against the English without a discriminating tariff duty, there may be two sides in regard to watch-making and some other industries, but when applied to cycles it is nonsense to suppose that we could compete.
As to American machines, that which would strike us as remarkable in the English would be, to a large extent, natural to our institutions; that all machine parts should be accurately made and be interchangeable would be taken for granted when coming from one of our factories, but it is a little odd to find it approached by others. The absolute regularity and similarity with which work is turned out by us is sometimes an objection; if a part is too hard or brittle, or in any way bad in its construction and form, a part for the same purpose, from the same factory, will be sure to be just like the one you want to replace; in fact, if you have one bad part, depend upon it there have been thousands made just like it, and you will be pretty certain to get one of them. It is generally conceded that the American maker is more careful to test his new plans before placing the product upon the market; anyhow, since the customer in this country is able to get to head-quarters more easily with his complaint, he generally favors buying at home, though it is often a very close contest in his mind just what to do.
However a cyclist may feel in regard to this question of English or American machines, it would be best in the long run to settle the question entirely upon the merits and quality of the work. It is a bad plan to implicitly take the word of a salesman regardless of one’s own judgment. The variety of machines has become so great that it is more than likely the customer will generally have to buy from the maker who has adopted the special style of machine the buyer is determined to have. But let this not deter him from insisting on a high grade of workmanship and excellence of material.
CHAPTER XIX.
CRANKS AND LEVERS AND TANGENT SPOKES.