Originally Posted by
crumbling
... yes the Whitehouse was called Butt-weld and The Patent Butted Tubing Company patent document in 1897 No 24931 states “The invention consists of improvements to seamless steel and other tubes” and does not claim inventing Butted tubing nor is Butted Tubing stated in that Patent document as it probably would not have been allowed at the time as another Patent was already in force. Thus Reynolds claim to inventing is only for the process of improvements to seamless steel and other tubes, surely a less confusing, original name could been applied....
The "improvements to seamless tubes and other tubes" covered by patent are the methods of manufacturing tubing with variations in wall thickness. The document specifically mentions cycle tubing as an intended application and uses the term "butted" to describe the thickened ends.
As a result of the granting of this patent, a new company, The Patent Butted Tubes Co. Ltd. was incorporated. The patent, in conjunction with the name of the company and its prime product, established the definition of butted in the lexicon of the bicycle industry (i.e. a butted tube is a tube with one or two thicker ends).
Accles and Pollock subscribed to the same definition. This is why their advertisements for butted showed a partially cut away tube. Look closely at the 1905 advertisement and you'll see that the tube has a thicker wall at the ends, starting above the 'A' and 'K' in the company name.
This definition is used by all bicycling tubing manufacturers. In the bicycle tubing industry you can't have butted tubing of constant thickness. It is an oxymoron.
Originally Posted by
crumbling
...My original statement of "The frame tubing is the butted type with a constant wall thickness (not thinning at the centres) on all tubes." This is a correct as it is clarifies the original request by evacReynolds531 to find "gauges Accles and Pollock Kromo tubes were drawn to..
"Gauges" refers to a set of standardized dimensional wall thicknesses to which tubes was manufactured. To answer the OP's question, you need to specify a gauge number or imperial or metric dimension. For instance the attached A&P advertisement mentions that their (thinner) 22 gauge tubing is lighter and stronger that the (thicker) 20 gauge tubing used by a competitor. Using gauge numbers to describe bicycle tubing wall thickness was common practice in countries using imperial measurements, up until around the time of the early 1970s bicycle boom.
Originally Posted by
crumbling
..." Butting" by Reynolds meaning is the "improvements to seamless steel and other tubes” ie wall thickness. A&P do state they use the Butted tubing in at least 1905 from what I have seen. Maybe Reynolds Patent had expired or A&P paid a royalty to use it or Reynolds did not have a claim to the "Butted" naming.
This is the origin of what is confusing to you.
There's no confusion of my part. I know what butted tubes means in the cycling lexicon. I started working in the bicycle industry 5 decades ago and was employed in or operated on the fringe of the industry for 4 decades.