Series 'A' Spoke Flanges

kettlrj

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
What was the original method of surface finishing for the series 'A' spoke flanges. Cadmium, dull chrome, painted or any other?
 

Marcus Bowden

VOC Hon. Overseas Representative
VOC Member
I've had all mine done with clear electro-zinc plating after I radiused all the slots and buffed the showing surfaces and they returned like chrome, keeping them duck oiled still looking reasonable after a good many years.
bananaman
 

kettlrj

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
Hi Marcus,
There are many ways of treating the flanges but the question is ' how were they finished originally by the factory?
 

Marcus Bowden

VOC Hon. Overseas Representative
VOC Member
Cadmium, and you can still get it done by the original people who did it for Vincent's I think, ask Peter Barker as he's very knowledgable about all things Vincent.
 

Dinny

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VOC Member
Mine are the originals and were painted black, I cleaned off the old paint (not original) and they were bare steel without any plating to be seen. I looked at old pictures and came to the conclusion they were black along with the center hubs and so I painted them black.

Mines a 35 so i'm not sure if they changed anything later but from all the original pictures I have seen there was very little plating on the A's and even a lot of the bolts and studs were painted black, I guess in the 30's bling was not really in!!

Cheers
Mark
 

vibrac

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Not a promenade Percy's bike then not like showoffs including my dad with an ivory calthorp
 

greg brillus

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VOC Member
Spoke flanges would have been black parkerised, as per all the main case and through studs........nuts washers and bolts all cadmium plated. I had a go with a parkerising kit, which sort of worked, but i painted the parts over this with Matt black paint just for a bit more durability. It turns out that parkerising similar to Gun barrel blueing is only a surface treatment that should be lightly coated in oil......the matt surface holding the oil film better than a smooth surface. My thoughts are that the folk who would truly remember what is correct on these early bikes are no longer with us, and that is why the correct info is hard to find.
 

Dinny

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VOC Member
The hubs on mine are aluminum and so I don’t think you can Parkerise aluminum?

I think some hubs on later machines were cast iron?
 
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