Wiel

I bought a batch of old cast steel lugs from the fifties. Very elaborate but not investment casted. They are numbered (probably for the catalog).
This is a set for a ladies bike toplug 69 and lower lug 101.
Maybe they were made by EKLA ? Does some one have a catalog? I only have found a page on fork-crowns so far.....


Cast steel from the fifties

unterhausen

That's interesting, I don't think I ever saw cast lugs before the IC era. Crowns and bb shells only.

Wiel

The Fonteyn whole salers catalog from 1950 had these :

Andrew R Stewart 

Sand cast fittings have been used and have a thicker/cruder look (usually) compared to IC/lost wax ones. Of course this is dependent on the maker's willingness to take the time to file/finish the "rough" castings. But in general sand cast weigh more and are made at a slower rate and/or with more workers to begin with. I think I have a sand cast fork crown in my stash.

This ID question might be of interest to the C&V sub forum members. classic-rendezvous-lightweight-vinta...oglegroups.com is another on line group of older lightweight bike collectors that might be able to help. On this forum Doug Fattic might be the most knowledgeable. Andy

bulgie 

I have a box of old Hetchins lugs, that spans the era where sand-cast lugs were giving way to formed sheetmetal, welded lugs, so some of them are cast, some welded. The cast ones are the coolest but definitely require thinning. I think the older casting process didn't allow such thin fine features — molten steel might now flow all the way into the thin parts? So they had to start out thicker. They were also machined on the bores for the tubes, so the fit is very nice. But some of the bores are a bit off-center relative to the cast outside suface, so the walls are thick on one side and in some cases vanishingly thin on the other. I assume that's why these lugs survived — they are seconds that were not considered good enough to make into a frame.

unterhausen

Now that I've thought about it for a while, I'm having flashbacks of some really awful sand cast lugs. The ones in the OP don't look too bad, but they do look like they would take a lot of work to clean up.

Wiel

Searching through old Brown Brothers catalogs showed EKLA as most probable maker.
I have more numbered lugs, and as Unterhausen says they can be ugly.

Brown Brothers catalogs 1939 and 1952

Cast steel lugs made in Belgium in the 50's