1991 Beryllium RekTek MTB
- Thread starter BC
- Start date
BC
Retro Guru
danson67":2qrsaohs said:
Thanks, Dan, for your input. Very interesting. I'm not sure what material it is, but all I do know is that I have never touched an alloy like this before. It truly is odd to touch and look at. This frame was made in Russia. Where is Brush-Wellman located? You are correct about the cable stop block. It is ment for a different bike...perhaps the ti sandvick frames they were doing? I'm not aware of RekTek doing bonded lugged frames.
Re: Re:
Its a great project, and I dont know either, not that it makes much odds does it..? its cool whichever.
BITD my early days, I was given the Univega to ride, My boss at the time made me aware that the Soviets had surplus raw materials and Pacific had bought, and were building bikes using the mmc for different manufacturers like Univega Etc, even though the material was now avaliable at a lower cost they still needed companies to want to use it for flagship models to make it viable.
As I say I dont know enough, but I had no reason to doubt the importer at the time, to me it was a little like a wonder material, it had a really nice touch when picking it up, totally different to anything else and it was light. Obviously as time went on, it did get diluted into lower models, and im guessing the actual tubeset differed when it went from being called Boralyn to borolite etc.
Other manufacturers were obviously using MMC too, but nothing seemed the same as the Boralyn, this may have been because it wasnt painted like a mmc Specialzed for example, I dont know, but certainly the Boralyn name being so close to Beryllium did add a little mystery to it for me, and this mystery was all thanks to the who ha in the press over the cost and difficulties of Beryllium.
I thought it was worth mentioning because the rear gear hanger looks quite generic, this may have been a simple purchase part for the product, but it might indicate the origin of manufacture too, especially as the cable guides look like they weren't for this frame originally.
I dont know enough about Rek Tek, but given they outsourced to Sandvik to fabricate there titanium frames, given the limited users or Boralyn/beryllium it would make more sense to me that a small firm like this wouldn't build this either but rather outsource to a company like Pacific to manufacture for them, much in the same way as many many companies not geared up to build titanium frames and too outsourced to companies like Sandvik.
Just a thought really, it might at least give you another avenue to explore.
BC":1pafc378 said:
Its a great project, and I dont know either, not that it makes much odds does it..? its cool whichever.
BITD my early days, I was given the Univega to ride, My boss at the time made me aware that the Soviets had surplus raw materials and Pacific had bought, and were building bikes using the mmc for different manufacturers like Univega Etc, even though the material was now avaliable at a lower cost they still needed companies to want to use it for flagship models to make it viable.
As I say I dont know enough, but I had no reason to doubt the importer at the time, to me it was a little like a wonder material, it had a really nice touch when picking it up, totally different to anything else and it was light. Obviously as time went on, it did get diluted into lower models, and im guessing the actual tubeset differed when it went from being called Boralyn to borolite etc.
Other manufacturers were obviously using MMC too, but nothing seemed the same as the Boralyn, this may have been because it wasnt painted like a mmc Specialzed for example, I dont know, but certainly the Boralyn name being so close to Beryllium did add a little mystery to it for me, and this mystery was all thanks to the who ha in the press over the cost and difficulties of Beryllium.
I thought it was worth mentioning because the rear gear hanger looks quite generic, this may have been a simple purchase part for the product, but it might indicate the origin of manufacture too, especially as the cable guides look like they weren't for this frame originally.
I dont know enough about Rek Tek, but given they outsourced to Sandvik to fabricate there titanium frames, given the limited users or Boralyn/beryllium it would make more sense to me that a small firm like this wouldn't build this either but rather outsource to a company like Pacific to manufacture for them, much in the same way as many many companies not geared up to build titanium frames and too outsourced to companies like Sandvik.
Just a thought really, it might at least give you another avenue to explore.
