jlaw

If you haven't already seen this (below), it is a good explanation of the various Japanese-manufactured tubes used on some 70's - 80's vintage bikes - on the Retrogrouch website. The posting and some of the comments are helpful. It helped me better understand the quality of some bikes/frames that I see on Craigslist.

Retrogrouch makes the case that some of the Tange and Ishawata tubes are of a comparable quality to the better Columbus and Reynolds offerings - and this means that some vintage bikes are under-appreciated for the quality of their frames thereby relected in asking prices. ....may be some bargains out there...


The Retrogrouch: Classic Tubes: Tange and Ishiwata

jlaw

...just noticed I spelled it wrong - should be 'Ishiwata', not 'Ishawata'..

Wileyone 

Thanks for posting this. Info on Ishiwata is hard to come by.

Ghrumpy

Yes, good reference.

Perhaps it should go without saying, but tubing quality is only the starting point of frame quality. The end point has much more to do with things other than tubing.

RiddleOfSteel

^^^ Agreed. Two '80s steeds of mine are both Tange Prestige: A hand-built (small local shop) Davidson Impulse and a (presumably hand-built in Japan at Panasonic) 1987 Schwinn Prologue. Top quality stuff. Both are very good bikes, but only one encourages me to ride longer, charge up hills, or push harder to accelerate, while feeling as fairly close in liveliness to my '16 Trek Emonda ALR. [answer: it's the Schwinn!]

droppedandlost 

Some raw tubeset numbers

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Don Buska

Great reference page. I went to their main index page and it's loaded with lots of information. Use a browser that translated from Japanese characters to english is most helpful to me. If you can read Japanese you have it made.

Thanks for the link

kc0yef 

google translate main poage excellent information
https://translate.google.com/transla...t/&prev=search

Lakerat

I have Tange #1 and #2 bikes. Both are nice. I read somewhere that the weight limit for the #1 tube set was 165 lbs. I rode that bike regularly for over 30 years, sometimes weighing up to 210 lbs.

verktyg 

Those numbers are like "lawyer lips" on fork ends. CYA!

A well constructed frame can handle much heavier riders than the published weight limits.

For example, during the 80's and 90's several well known Northern California frame builders used uber high strength Excel tubing with main tube wall thicknesses as thin as 0.3mm and 0.5mm. I've seen some of those frames as large as 62cm and never heard of any problems with them.

They also used Super Vitus 980 and Tange Prestige primarily because those tubes sets were less expensive than Reynolds or Columbus.

4130 Chrome Molybdenum alloy steel has been the world standard for structural applications since the 1930's. Tange, Ishiwata and Columbus used 4130 alloy steel for their top quality tubes until the early 80's when higher alloy steels became available.

All 3 brands published slightly different chemistry and strength specs as if the steel that they used was something special...It wasn't! Those specs are all with the the tolerance limits for 4130 steel.

NOTE! Tange changed the "published" wall thickness specs for butted #1 and #2 main tubes several times.

In the last iteration:

#1 Top Tube 0.8mm x 0.5mm x 0.8mm, Seat Tube 0.8mm x 0.5mm, Down Tube 0.9mm x 0.6mm x 0.9mm
#2 Top Tube 0.9mm x 0.6mm x 0.9mm, Seat Tube 0.9mm x 0.6mm, Down Tube 0.9mm x 0.6mm x 0.9mm

Those were the only differences between Tange #1 and #2.

Columbus SL and Super Vitus 971 had the same 0.9mm x 0.6mm main tube wall thicknesses as Tange #2. The rest of the tubes in those sets were about the same too.

Reynolds 531 was produced with butted main tube wall thicknesses ranging from 0.5mm x 0.3mm up to 1.2mm x 0.9mm. The lightest for was for specialty time trial and track bikes, the heaviest for tandems.

The most commonly used Reynolds 531 tubing for production frames from the late 60's through the early 80's was called the Sprint tube set. The main tubes were 1.0mm thick in the butted sections and 0.7mm in the rest of the tube.

That was the same wall thickness as Columbus SP tubing which was also used on many production frames during those years. So, the urban fantasies about Reynolds vs. Columbus and which was lighter were just that.

By the late 70's Columbus SL tubing became more popular but SP was still used for larger frames.

In the UK a lot of builders used a lighter gage of Reynolds 531 with the main tube wall thicknesses the same as Tange #1. In the late 80's this became known as Reynolds 531 Competition tubing.

Reynolds 531, Super Vitus 971/980 and the 4310 tubing from Tange, Ishiwata and Columbus all had pretty much the same physical properties and strengths.

Differences in performance between frames made from those tubes sets was due to geometry, wall thickness and construction methods.

The introduction of higher strength alloys for bicycle tubing in the 1980's allowed for thinner wall thickness tubes resulting in lighter frames.

verktyg

Wileyone 

It would also be nice to learn the types of Lugs these two companies produced
(if any). or whether the Lugs were outsourced by the end builder.

I am rather new to Japanese Frames and am interested in learning.

Don Buska

I enjoyed reading your assessment of the variations on the different tubings. I am very interested in the different seat tube dimensions that the Tange tubing had over time, i.e. the Tange 1 being 0.8mm x 0.5mm, while all the tables I've seen, including the one you provided, had the seat tubes as 0.9mm x 0.6mm for Tange 1, 2 and 3. The tables that I've seen only had the dimensions variations on the top and down tubes, being thinner as the tubing number went down. However, to go along with your review I indeed have noticed that on manufactured bikes they often didn't follow the table dimensions, especially for the seat tube, based on the labeled (via decal) and advertised 'set' used. For example, I recently acquired an old 1984 SR Maxima (SR bikes out of California with frames made in Japan). It was sold and labeled as using TANGE 2, which per the tables would have that 0.9mm x 0.6mm seat tube and thus a 26.6mm seat post would be expected. However, the advertised bike indicates a 26.8mm seat post and the frame I have verifies that. In the same SR catalog they had a model called the Pro Am which also states uses the TANGE 2 tubing, yet it has a seat post dimension given as 27.0mm (True the catalog could be wrong as I don't have a real Pro Am to verify that size). So using the normal means of determining seat post sizes I'd expect the tube thicknesses to be 0.8mm for the SR Maxima and 0.7mm for the SR Pro Am. BTW, the frames for both SR bikes were made by Araya! Did manufactures often bore out seat tubes as standard practice or use tubes from another set, yet fail to indicate so?

It appears that the tubing labels on various bikes must be taken with some dimensional flexibility. BTW, on some of the later Araya bike catalogs from the late 80's they would advertise mixtures of TANGE 1 and TANGE 2 being used on one bike, or at least that how interpreted them as they are written in Japanese which I can't read.

Just wondering if others have encountered this same flexibility of tube dimensions on bikes labeled for a specific tubing type? You would think that it would have been a marketing plus to tell your buyers that in some places thinner, thus lighter, tubing was used.

JohnDThompson 

Ishiwata made some bulge-formed and investment cast fork crowns, but I'm not aware of any Ishiwata lugs. At Trek, we used Nikko lugs on the early frames.

Tange made investment cast lugs and fork crowns (we used some of these on the mid-80s high-end steel frames), as well as stamped lugs. We used the short-point Champion stamped lugs on the first "170" model frames.

T-Mar

Tange was the only one of the big four tubing manufacturers to employ a double butted seat tube on a regular basis. The double butted sets, #1,#2 and #3, all used the same double butted seat tube. This appears to have been a conscientious decision based on cost and logistical considerations, as it allowed manufacturer's to stock a common post for these sets (along with the #5 plain gauge tubeset and the #102 single butted hi-tensile tubeset). The only exceptions in the 1970s were the single butted #4, the double butted #101 hi-tensile set and the lightweight Pro tubeset.

Only when Tange introduced Prestige did they succumb to the weight weenie demands for single butted seat tubes, offering builders a choice of seat tubes. Even the 1980s, the Tange 900 and Inifinity tubesets would employ the standard 0.9/0.6/0.9mm seat tube, though in a seamed version.

During manufacturer, it is fairly common to experience distortion of the seat tubes. This can cause manufacturers to use smaller posts. Some manufacturers routinely ream/hone to correct this and in some cases will go one size larger, to ensure the tube is round. It's also easy to become too aggressive with this operation. Consequently, it is fairly common to see posts that vary +/- 0.2mm from the nominal size.

There are also cases where manufacturers will request a custom tube. Centurion did this with the Turbo and Ironman models. Despite the Tange #1 decal, the tubesets are a custom blend and typically are fitted with 27.0-27.2mm posts.

The bottom line is that it fairly common to see posts that +/- 0.2mm from nominal, after allowing for clearance.

RiddleOfSteel

Wow. Such fantastic information here! Thank you! Looks like my Prestige frames are properly slender, but that's I think part of what makes them so nice.

Don Buska

I hear what your saying TMar. What was confusing to me was those SR frames (Araya) that both are advertised as using TANGE #2 which should have been 26.6 posts, and even considering that my SR Maxima went to 26.8mm which falls into your +/- 0.2mm, that advertised Pro AM was actually + 0.4mm using the 27mm post. I'm just more of the belief that they, Araya in this case, didn't hold to a true TANGE #2 tubeset on these bikes. Or at the very least Araya was doing some serious reaming (almost making double butted into a triple butted seat tube (0.9 X 0.6 X 0.7).

Shrevvy 

I recently picked up a 1984 Schwinn Peloton. Specs show 26.6 seat post, but it came with a 27.0. It is Columbus tubing as opposed to Tange or Ishiwata. The 26.6 is too small and the seat post does not look like it has been altered. How does someone like Schwinn keep it all straight if the seat posts varied for a given model?

T-Mar

Well, it could be a custom blend. One possibility would be Tange #2 with a #4, single butted seat tube. Even though the #4 seat tube is 0.1mm thicker in the non-butted section, the fact that it is a single butted tube results in it weighing ~10g less than the double butted #2 seat tube. Theoretically, the single butted tube should also be slightly less expensive, though at least some of that would have been offset by having to stock two post sizes. Still, this utilizes a combination of stock tubes, so is easy and cheap to accomplish, while providing a very small but definable difference to a stock #2 frame. .

Some of the Centurion catalogs show the same thing. In 1984 catalogue, the Turbo (Tange #1) is spec'd with a 27.2mm post while the Comp TA (Tange #2) is spec'd with a 27.0mm post. Later catalogues show both #1 and #2 frames with 27.0mm posts. Clearly all are larger than you would typically expect. Obviously, there was some form of customization taking place.

due ruote 

Great info. Another example of what a useful brain trust the forum is. It�s possible I missed something, but I didn�t notice Ishiwata 024 on the lists so far. Any info on that set?

Don Buska

Thanks T-Mar. Yeah they are just trying to make the life of us restorers a living hell I bought this Araya frame off eBay and the seller actually did quite a bit of research into the frame. I rarely see such nice eBay ads with details of all the dimensions, except the seller didn't know what it was originally. It had been repainted, a really weird white with brown streaking, and I knew that would make it harder for me to trace what it was originally. My main attraction was the Suntour Superbe Pro chromed dropouts! Everything about the frame told me it was a higher end model. Beside those dropouts it was built for hidden nut brake calipers too. While the bike was in its journey to my home I started my investigation. I'm not sure why I decided to look at the SR bikes, but I did. (I did find later via some web searching that SR did go to Araya for some frames) There was, and is currently, an 84 SR Maxima frame on eBay with really great pictures. Sure enough it matched my purchased frame exactly, except for the size. The eBay SR used a 1984 Araya frame as well. So even before it arrived I had the feeling that it started life as an 84 SR Maxima, plus the seller said it came to him with all Superbe components installed, as did the original Maxima. What supported my conclusion was once the frame arrived there was a wee bit of the original blue paint inside the bottom bracket. The original Maxima came in metallic blue or red! So the SR catalog is where I got the Tange #2 information from and the agreement with the 26.8mm post size. Sometimes life just works out like that.

I'm completing the restoration of that frame, newly powder coated, today. I will do a write-up for the forum in
short order, once the weather around here warms up enough for some nice outdoor pictures

Thanks again, as always, T-Mar for your valuable insights.

Ghrumpy

024 is 1.0-.0.7-1.0 DB. Also available in 024E triple butted. (All Ishiwata "E" series tubing is triple butted)

Also, Kaisei tubing is basically exactly the same as Ishiwata. They even use the same names for the different series.

RiddleOfSteel

Yours may be an anomaly, or maybe someone messed with it. I assumed that the Peloton, even in '84, would have been a 27.2mm seatpost like my '85 Peloton. All my Schwinns have been dead-on with their seatpost specs and what has ended up fitting.

Regardless, you have a seat post that works, which is important, because Pelotons are pretty freaking sweet bikes.

Wileyone 

I purchased this 1978 Fuji Pro recently and understand the tubing to be Ishiwata. I was wondering if anyone might know what the Lugs are?

T-Mar

The charts that I've seen for "E" series tubesets indicate quad butting and that includes the later Kaisei versions.

Ghrumpy

Yes, you're right, quad butted. Derp. I should have just looked at my tubing sticker.