"There's a beauty in the perfectly executed welds one finds on a finely crafted frame, welds performed with such a steady hand that they look like endless stacks of tiny dimes. Some builders, rather than welding a frame, will use an even more painstaking process called fillet brazing, in which the craftsman melts pools of brass onto a pair of joined tubes, then files the joint smooth. A properly fillet-brazed bicycle will appear to be of one piece, one tube flowing into the other and into the next like a meandering river.
Another technique joins tubes with steel sleeves called lugs, then seals them with melted silver or brass. These lugs may be hand cut to a rococo shape of the customer's design, filed to a razor's edge, then chromed to resemble the detail work on an ancient Cadillac."
-Matt Smith
No comments:
Post a Comment