Originally Posted by
scarlson
Here's the best article I have found about Schwinn electroforging. It shows the process in pretty sufficient detail:
https://sheldonbrown.com/varsity.html
And here's a video showing a brief view of the process being used to attach chainstays. Around 0:17 to 0:27.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX46Ioduc9A
I think the discussion at the end of the Sheldon article is interesting. I wonder if they had just hung on a little longer, if we'd have a competitive high-quality lightweight factory means of producing steel frames. Or would cheap labor nullify any gains that could be made from machines? Who knows.
Schwinn had the UAW in Chicago... the plants in other states did not. But I do not think that was the killer.
The offshore wage that could be 10% of what was paid locally, it would take a tremendous amount of machinery and robotics to attempt to level the field.
couple that with the offshore makers could buy equal or better equipment. The end was in sight.
the electroforged process was refined to mimic fillet brazed construction. I have a Schwinn New World pre WWII, fillet brazed, nice bike
too labor intensive.
Schwinn was very vertically integrated, a good thing till it is not.
it was stated that steel strip arrived and bicycles left.