snipped: <chuckschmidt@earthlink.net> writes: "You say it takes you twice as long to make a bike frame now (using your investment cast lugs?) as it did using pre-investment cast lugs (pressed steel lugs?)? And that the 200% increase in time it takes you to make a frame today is in the parts of the frame that do not include the lugs????? Would you elaborate in some detail please?" /-------------****---------------****---------------\
it's quite simple, Chuckissimo®. preparing and filing 3 frame lugs is not the entire body of work needed to make a frame. but - you knew that. in the ensuing years since i switched from pressed steel to cast lugs - and i still do use pressed steel lugs as well...
see these examples:
http://tinyurl.com/
...the amount of time needed to "assemble" the frame has grown exponentially because i know more about what it takes to build a frame well. to get the interference fits, the proper alignment, the cleanly brazed-and-not-scraped joint edges, and all the other build tasks up to the quality that i'm interested in - the time is longer. period. back in the nascent 70s/80s when i was less knowing about some important tech aspects, it was easier to focus on the "skin" of the frame while hoping the rest of it was sound. well, in some respects, that part of the build is now almost rote; i find it mildly simple to make the frames with the exterior qualities they presently exhibit. the time sink is the assembly procees - all the tasks needed to get the tubes into and out of fixtures so that what is yielded is frame that has the fewest possible in-born stresses and arrives "here" straight in its finished state, rather than wrestled into precision alignment. "and" just because some of the parts are cast rather than not does not mean that they are not paid due attention. at this time, perhaps it's appropriate to mine 2 of my favorite quotes, pulled from George Nakashima's "The Soul of a Tree":
"He (...the woodworker) has a special intensity, a striving for perfection, a conviction that any task must be executed with all his skill. Basically the woodworker is not driven by commerce, but by a need to create the best possible object he is capable of creating. Even if the object were to be destroyed when finished, the craftsman would still give the task his all". and "...the thousand judgements,,,must be made to shape a good wood object".
to wit, once i realized how many judgements are needed to make a complete
frame i stopped obsessing about a single one and began focusing on it as
a whole. classic content: it doesn't matter how the lugs are produced,
they
still deserve and receive the same attention and respect as is accorded
any
other part of the frame.
e-RICHIE®
chester prefecture, ct