"They Don't Build Them Like They Used To" - Quality Control, Fit, and Finish in Vintage Bicycles

 The vintage bicycle enthusiast (or any antiques enthusiast) will often be heard saying, "they don't build them like they used to." In some ways, that is true. Old production methods often involved a greater degree of skilled labor, hand fitting, and final inspection by someone knowledgeable about the product. 

But not all vintage products were created equal. Some products were built for a particular price point, cutting corners on final fitting, relying on spot welds instead of proper brazing/welding, concealing mistakes with shiny paint, or trying to make up for defects with rubbish accessories. 

Other products were of a more premium type, showing carefully developed manufacturing methods, skilled fitting, and good quality control. 

Even in the premium products we sometimes find corners cut. I wrote previously about how some Schwinn frames built during World War II involved reduced final finishing so the rest of the factory could be devoted to meeting wartime production requirements for battlefield goods. 

But cutting corners in some places was not limit to wartime. 

 

Let's take this very, very nice 1949-50 Schwinn New World as an example. This bike was not 100% original as I found it, but it also shows no signs of abuse. In fact, the bearing surfaces all show minimal mileage. 

 

Disassembling and cleaning the bike, I find somewhat minimal brazing of the seat stays around the seat cluster, and messy brazing of the down tube to the bottom bracket. 

 

A fully finished braze joint is uniform and smooth all the way around, and of a semi-conical shape (it is shaped a bit like a volcano). This down tube joint shows almost no smoothing and is less than uniform. We can't blame a prior owner for this one though - it came from the factory this way! No one is perfect... 

I  believe on the better-made bikes, quality control has actually become more uniform compared to many years ago. Computer-aided production has helped prevent some of the mistakes and cut corners of the past. This is not to defend lesser, newer products though. There are plenty of cheap, junky new bikes out there. 

Unless mistakes on these old bikes reduce the safety or function of the bike, I would not worry about them. Braze joints were a hand-built thing, so they will all vary a little. So long as your bike has not been abused and the safety and function are intact, I'd gladly ride it. After all, they were meant to be ridden...