Postby utedeej » Wed May 20, 2015 12:44 pm
Did a little bit of research on Trove and worked out the following.
Keith Davis seems to have opened his own business around 1980, working from Kambah, O’Connor and Braddon at different times over the years. He was an accredited Reynolds Master Frame Builder, allowing him to braze frames with 753. Getting this accreditation involved brazing a frame and fork and then sending it to England for analysis of the work done.
There’s an extract of an article from the Canberra Times on Keith below.
Now your bike can be really tailor-made, by Arthur Jones
Canberra Times, Wednesday 5 May 1982.
How would you like a tailor-made bike? Really tailor-made, that is, with the "tailor" taking your inside leg measurement, height, arm length etc., just as a specialised outfitter does when he measures you for a new suit..... Up till now, it has not been possible to be measured for a bike in Canberra; the best you could hope for was a choice of frame sizes, and, if you went to the right shop, a selection of saddles, handlebars and gears to choose from..... I am happy to tell you that you can now order a complete made-to measure bike (or just the frame), and, when you take delivery, you will know that it is tailor-made to fit you like a glove.
Keith Davis, a member of the Canberra Old Boys Club, has just started building frames, and the ones that I have seen are first-class — at least the equal of any shop-bought frames. What happens is that you first of all decide what you want the bike for — racing, touring or commuting — and then you go along and have a chat with Keith about the design. If you have a short back and long legs, he may want to measure you (unless you have the information ready), and at the same time you can tell him what frame angles you would like or any other personal preferences. Then you go away and leave Keith in peace for a few days, while he gets out his drawing board and plans the frame to see if it is possible to meet all your demands. So, if it is found that your ideas are OK, Keith starts assembling the tubes in a special jig. He then has the long job of filing the ends of the tubes to ensure a snug fit. If you can visualise two tubes meeting together, you can probably see that the one that butts on to the other (the "leg" of the 'T\ as it were) has to be filed into a cut-away round shape in order to fit closely around the other tube. This is not strictly necessary, of course, and it is quite possible that in cheaper bikes, the two tubes are just stuck into lugs and brazed up to make a not very strong joint.
Keith files away until all the tubes in the frame are a perfect fit, and then they are brazed together — or, quite often, joined by silver solder, which is just as strong but which needs less heat, thereby minimising any possible damage to the metal. Then it is back to work with the file again, this time to smooth out the joints and prepare the frame for enamelling. By the way, Keith even bends his own forks, so any preferences you may have for rake or trail can also be met. He uses only the best materials — Reynolds tubing — either Standard or Superlight, with Prugnat lugs. The tubing comes in four varieties — plain or double butted (in which the tubes are thicker at the ends where the greatest stress comes), and used either for every tube in the frame or merely for the three main tubes.
And how do you know you are getting what you pay for? By looking at the frame, which will have a Reynolds sticker specifying just what is in it. And Reynolds are choosy about who they issue their stickers to — and rightly so, as they are very jealous of their reputation. Twenty-two out of the last twenty-three winners of the Tour de France have used Reynolds tubing, and that speaks for itself. And if that were not enough, Reynolds themselves invented the double butted tube some years ago…..
The brand name is 'Pegasus', and there is a splendid flying horse motif on the head stem, with the name also engraved on the tops of the fork crowns. The finish is impeccable, the price a pleasant surprise around $300 to S350 for the hand-made frame, and the number to phone
