On the Hanriot it looks as though the V brackets were a combination of socket and clamp, kinda like a long pair of boots with a strap around the top!. There is a through bolt though. Once again I believe that these old airplanes just used sockets on the gear and interplane struts and relied on the tension of the rigging to hold it all together. I expect like everything else they were fishing around for a system that would work, and the one they used was not necessarily the best! If you used absolute scale bolts and fittings they would be so small as to be nearly invisible, and probably useless too! I used 0-80 brass model railroad bolts on mine and they still look too large..

Randy.