B2 this isn't apples and oranges. at the core of the past two day's threads are issues about 1) modern framebuilding versus frame- building that was modern a looong time ago, 2) the virtues of doing something by hand versus designing it by hand and then having it 'produced', either by assistants or mechanically, 3) whether people still do things the 'old' way with sweat equity and the like... as we've discovered vis-a-vis the hetchins history piece that i hope you read, even the progenitors of the 'handcut lug', that bastion of bespoke british framebuilding, hetchins, sought to eliminate hand-work, tried to maximize efficiency, and, heck, made no bones about the 'myth' that a caring framebuilder lovinginly caressed each and every friggin' lug and imparted his spirit into every frame that bore the hetchins marque, a marque that is the identifying brand associated with ornamental frame detailing. they were not doing what most people hoped to, or wanted to, believe. and ya' know what? they did an XLNT job in spite of, or even because of, their desire to make the most amount of frames whilst using their era's equivilant of pre-fabbed building supplies. it's all in the history text. you can't unring the bell! as far as my question posed several times lately, "Where are the customers?" it was a rhetorical question at best. you have work. i have work. peter, dave, curt, tony...we all have work. there is no shortage of people who want we we offer. things are good. all of us, together, produce so few bicycles that, luckily, we are insulated from the pressures of this or any market. all of us can make frames the old way-with 'rough' parts, etcetera...-or we can make frames with parts that represent the vanguard. either way, we're keeping people on handmade bicycles. apples to apples. e-RICHIE chester, ct
snipped and cut:
Brian Baylis <rocklube@adnc.com> writes:
Richie,
I'd love to keep up with this thread but today I can't. I get the
feeling we are going to be talking about apples and oranges here very
soon.
Part of the answer to "where are the customers?" is how many do you
need? That depends on the capacity of the builder which in turn dictates
how many customers you need. I only need 6 or so per year. I imagine you
need considerably more. Needless to say, I don't need more customers.
Even if I built 15 per year I wouldn't need more customers. I can't
possibly build that many
.