Kona Cindercone or is it?

[bikeworkshop]

Columbus and Tange are manufacturers.
A cheap columbus tube sounds duller than a nice Tange one.
I doubt you can tell manufacturer by "ring" - excepting perhaps TrueTemper
But you can certainly tell quality.

Tube length, joins and braze-ons all have an effect too.

Perhaps they filled the stay mounts because the threads were stripped.

 

[Spanky22b]

View attachment 887237

Columbus and Tange are manufacturers.
A cheap columbus tube sounds duller than a nice Tange one.
I doubt you can tell manufacturer by "ring" - excepting perhaps TrueTemper
But you can certainly tell quality.

Tube length, joins and braze-ons all have an effect too.

Perhaps they filled the stay mounts because the threads were stripped.

Just from my experience mainly with Tange Prestige but you can definitely tell the difference between Prestige whether that's a 88 Pine Mountain to a 93 Explosif. it's got a certain unique sound compared to say a 88 Muirwoods or a 93 Lavadome with bog standard tubesets which just sound dull really. This part is just my opinion but where you really notice it is when it's just a frame with nothing at all attached.

The rack mounts could be that reason when they went to spray it just cut them off.

 

[minor_LEGEND]

The rack mounts on this 97 era would be pierced into the tube, my 91 Cinder' has a whole threaded boss attached to the tube - thus easily removed with saw, the other type not so. I will add the pics of the stays/rear dropout are not like any Cinder Cone I have seen (as mentioned can be somewhat cheap looking - brazed in a hurry)
I agree on the tube sounds, I have Prestige, Colombus Foco & an old Cinder in my fleet. That Cinder has a thud in comparison. This is quite intriguing.

 

[W7Ford]

Hi, the S/N indicates that it was made in Taiwan in Feb '96 (F for Fairly which was one of the two Taiwanese factories Kona used at the time, 6 for 96 and 02 for Feb), putting it in the middle of production for the '96 model year. It can't be an Explosif, because they were used Columbus tubes that were very clearly ovalized which your frame does not have. It's not a Hot because they were US made with a very different S/N format. The best it could be is a Kilauea, but I'm not sure why it would then be stickered up as a lesser frame. Most likely is a 96 Cinder Cone which had the rack mounts removed when it was repainted. Of course, with old Konas there always seem to be bikes that don't seem to fit in, and that second S/N is a mystery. The weight may give the best indication, the catalog gives a frame weight of 4.5 pounds for the Cinder Cone but it would be more for a larger frame like that.

Good to have your Kona knowledge on here!

 

[minor_LEGEND]

/\ From my time spent working in the industry; whilst we all have garnered much knowledge over the years, be it catalogues, magazine articles or just hearsay, you can't take things like catalogue spec or a frame sticker as gospel. To a large scale manufacturer/marketing company such as a bicycle manufacturer, if they run out of tubesets or even particular frames it would not be unusual for the manufacturer to up-spec a bike frame for example in order to meet production deadlines etc. Likewise I have seen differing frame tube stickers & the like. It is what it is,,,, Nobody in the factories in Taiwan back in 1991 could have imagined we would be obsessing over frame stickers or braze-ons on a mass-produced bike frame 30 years down the line.

 

[Spanky22b]

/\ From my time spent working in the industry; whilst we all have garnered much knowledge over the years, be it catalogues, magazine articles or just hearsay, you can't take things like catalogue spec or a frame sticker as gospel. To a large scale manufacturer/marketing company such as a bicycle manufacturer, if they run out of tubesets or even particular frames it would not be unusual for the manufacturer to up-spec a bike frame for example in order to meet production deadlines etc. Likewise I have seen differing frame tube stickers & the like. It is what it is,,,, Nobody in the factories in Taiwan back in 1991 could have imagined we would be obsessing over frame stickers or braze-ons on a mass-produced bike frame 30 years down the line.

They'd probably think we're a bunch of nutters lol