I will disagree slightly with Steve, but only slightly. Imagine Builder X had access to a lugged BB shell that was perfect for all the tubes coming in. All the angles and clearances were perfect. With that hypothetical BB shell on hand, then functionally, fillet brazing and lugged would be functionally equivalent. Both strong, both reasonable weight. Totally equivalent and absolutely impossible to tell the difference in use.
If that hypothetical BB shell was already on hand, then the lugged assembly work would be cheaper. Maybe not a whole lot cheaper, but not more expensive. If that hypothetical BB shell was NOT on hand and you had to go cast a new one, custom, then that's prohibitive. Say $5000-$10000 and a few months to get something set up to cast a new BB shell. Once you've done the prep work, then manufacturing hundreds or thousands of them is not that expensive, but that first one is really expensive. Nobody makes a true custom cast lug. No frame builder casts custom lugs for their custom frames. Will they someday, with metal 3D printing? Perhaps, but not today. Bill Lindsay El Cerrito, CA On Friday, February 28, 2020 at 12:27:28 PM UTC-8, Steve Palincsar wrote: > > Usually they're used because the "lugged" ones don't allow you to angle > the chain stays enough to provide the clearance to make room for really > wide tires. I'd call that "functionally better". > > > On 2/28/20 1:11 PM, Conway Bennett wrote: > > The new Atlantis and Crust Nor'easter both are lugged with a filet brazed > bottom bracket. I assume it reduces the cost but is it functionally better, > worse, or the same as a lugged bb shell? > > > -- > Steve Palincsar > Alexandria, Virginia > USA > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/cde733aa-870e-428f-8e23-9b5cf3b6f425%40googlegroups.com.
