Mark,
Mike Howard tells me that the lugs were cast by a company in Chicago, which explains their hardness, which I don't like. Mike says they still have the moulds, which have had a cutout added finally. Mario intended to have the spades he used cut out on a pantograph machine, so never had them cast into the original lugs. To my knowledge Mario never built a frame with the investment lugs; partly due to the fact that the first castings were rejected due to undersized openings for the tubes, I think.
Brian Baylis
Brian Baylis
>
> Brian wrote:
>
> > The issue of the investment cast lugs that Mario designed and
> > made the moulds for is a classic example of how Bill operated.
>
> and:
>
> > Medici was using the investment cast lugs that Mario never got
> > to use himself
>
> I once got to hold in my hand a matched but mismatched set of lugs - an
> investment cast top/head lug and a hand-filed down/head lug made by welding
> some extra meat onto a standard sheetmetal lug and then carving it down. I
> haven't seen more than 2 or 3 real Confentes in my life but the family
> resemblance was so strong I just knew the hand filed one musta been made by
> Mario.
>
> Somehow these ended up in Bill Davidson's lug collection, (where I saw 'em)
> which makes me wonder if the Medici lugs were cast in Japan? Cuz Davidson
> had a close connection with the head of Takahashi, whose main business was
> cheap pressed steel frame components but who also had a hi-qual cast lug
> business. Probably most well known to members of this list as the makers of
> some (maybe all?) of the Nagasawa cast bits.
>
> Anyway I didn't hear the story behind 'em, but I just loved that hand-filed
> lug which had apparently been made as a sample or model to make the cast
> ones from. The cast one, though well made, just didn't have the aura. The
> hand made one had a soul.
>
> OK I just watched "The Red Violin" so I might be reading more into it than
> is really there, just humor me ok?
>
> Great story Brian, thanks.
>
> Mark Bulgier