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Early CCM Front Hub Questions
I'm in the process of preparing some nickel-plated hubs to be laced into two pairs of new wood rims I bought from Noah Stutzman in Ohio. Some questions have come up and I'm hoping someone here knows about the evolution of CCM's early front hubs. In the first photo, hubs 1 and 2 are nickel. Hub 3 looks chrome-plated but it's dull and not the shiny chrome of postwar bikes. Hub 1 is thicker than 2 and 3 and in the second photo you can see the bearing cup has a smaller surface area as a result. Hubs 1 and 2 have the same CCM stamp, but hub three has a triangle after CCM, a six digit serial number (146147), and a different oil filler.
One of the hubs had a thick axle but most seem to have a thin axle. I thought it could be a mens - ladies bike thing, but have been told early hubs had the skinny axles. I have a 1934 CCM with a different style chrome hub and a skinny axle, but my two from the '40s have thick front axles. The photo of the wheel is from my 1922 CCM Cleveland Mens, and it has a hub like number 2 and a skinny axle. The thick axle is longer, but the cones are interchangeable and it also fits into that same hub. So, it's possible the one thick axle I found in the nickel-plated hub was a later replacement for the original skinny axle that had bent or been stripped. These are all observations, now for the questions:
Does anyone know...
1) what years this style of hub was used by CCM?
2) in what (approximate) years did CCM use the thicker hub number 1?
3) could hub number 3 also be nickel plated, but done a little differently, or is it definitely chrome plated?
4) did CCM make thin and thick front axles in the same years?
5) if the answer to 2 is no then what year or time period did CCM switch from thin to thick axles?
I don't know if these are easy questions or too obscure for anyone to know, but it's been bothering me so I thought I'd ask. I don't want to build these wheelsets and discover later I used a hub that's incorrect to the wood rim era. If possible, I'd like to use hubs that are correct for the bikes they will be fitted to.
Brian
You can sometimes tell what size of axle was used by the size of drop out .
Brian
You can sometime tell by the size of the slot in the fork if it took the small axle or the thicker one.
Brian
I also have a non branded CCM hub(nickel plated) like your photo #1 to make matters sketchy. I would say older yet as it is no branded.
Hub #1 seems to be the "Comfort Hub" depicted on page 38 of the 1918 CCM catalogue. If the hub from my 1922 Cleveland is the same as #2 then I suppose the change between 1 and 2 was made within those years. I'm always a little suspicious of catalogue illustrations though, as I have seen hints over the years that companies might have continued to use older, slightly out of date illustrations to save money.
My 1918 Cleveland came with a branded no#1 original to the bike.
Agreed, using catalogue pictures can sometimes be misleading due to artistic license and the practice of recirculating old illustrations. However, the hub shell with the fatter barrel does appear to be the older style. My catalogues indicate the part number for the hub shell had changed by the very late 1920s. This appears to be a legitimate, physical change to the shell and not just a numbering system change, as several common parts, such as the axle, oiler, etc, retain the old part numbers. Consequently, there appears to have been a change from a shell with a fat hub barrel, to one with a skinny hub barrel, sometime in the decade after 1918, as indcated by the illustrations and substantiated by Lou's comment. Perhaps if other members would check their 1920s catalogues, we could determine exactly when the hub shell with the skinny barrel (part numbner 1058) came into use.
Have looked from 04 to 25. It appears to me that they used the same printing block throughout that period for front hub No. 1036. In 1920 a slightly smaller diameter but curved profile hub No. 1054 was introduced. Im pretty sure I have not seen that hub as pictured in the catalogues, !925 racing hubs were introduced No.1037 front 1038 rear with considerably smaller barrels. At least these years are when they appeared in the catalogues. I do not think that is an acurate way to date things but in many cases it is all we have.
!058 must be 1926 or later. I tried for some time to post a scan of the 1925 catalogue page with no success. That page has all 3 hubs.
Ron
1925 catalogue
Ron you have 04 through 25????
and no sharing!
Thanks John. That was some Magic on your part!
No problem Ron.
John
Thank you very much everyone for the very useful information! I'm going to put thin axles in hubs 1 and 2, and a thick axle in hub 3. I'll probably put hub 1 on my 1918, hub 2 on my 1922, and sell hub 3 since it's chrome. Interestingly, the three axles are all different lengths despite being from the same type of hub (see photo). I was able to get the slightly longer thin axle from a late 1920s CCM wheel with a Comfort Hub and steel rim. There are many aspects of this hobby that I enjoy a great deal, and this kind of detective work is one of them. Cheers!
Ron, 1058 was the part number for the hub shell, not the complete hubs. I believe this correpondes to the hub shell with the skinny barrel, as it is referenced in the parts list of the 1925 catalogue as being the hub shell for the 1036 complete hub. The hub shell for the comfort hub, which I believe is the shell with the fat barrel, is listed as part number 1066. It's a bit confusing because the diagram for the hub shell shows a fat barrlel and states 1058, which I believe is incorrect.