Thomas,
I can tell you about two bikes I own that were built during the "Bob Jackson" period of Hetchins'. I ordered both after meeting Danny Foster of Bob Jackson at the trade show in Anaheim in believe in 1990. I enquired if they would build the frames "custom" and he said yes.
I sent a full scale drawing of my 50cm (c-t) MO Vibrant track frame. I sent along three main tubes of Columbus PL tubing, and a pair of old style Campag. track dropouts. I paid the extra 25 pounds for them to silver braze the frame. I also requested a fastback seat stay treatment, just to be different.
The frame came out exactly as I specified and was nicely made and cleanly brazed. I had the opportunity to see the bare frame because I repainted it shortly after recieving it. My color choices from Jackson did not work properly. It was in fact silver brazed. It rides really well also and I like the bike a lot. It's a fine piece of work even considering the starting point of a basic Prugnat lug.
The second bike was my Jackson trike. I ordered it direct also and sent a set of Nervex Professional lugs that I had already reinforced the seat lug binder on. Turns out Jackson has tons of Nervex pro lugs on hand; but at least mine has a solid binder. I'm very happy with my trike with the optional rear rack and the price I paid for the frame and freight, approx. $1,100, was most agreeable for me. The rest of the parts except for the rear hubs and one front brake (which comes with the frame) were things I had on hand.
I find both of these bikes quite satisfactory and considering the prices I paid I feel very fortunate to own them. I also have a 1995 Hetchins MO Vibrant tandem and year 2000 Millinium frame number 2011. I most certainly would not consider any of my earlier bikes to be lesser quality of construction or design than my later two built by the David Miller arrangement. I might even say the opposite, but not to any significant degree.
Throw that in the hopper. Hope this does some good.
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA
>
> Brandon,
> I'm certainly not the authority here and am only serving
> (partially) as conduit to Flash on this. We're all free to engage
> him directly. I have had a glimpse of some of his process. It is
> careful, thoughtful and patient. Ive also been allowed a peek at
> some findings and surmise over the past week. There's some info
> coming that will challenge the mythology that I, at least, have
> been led to believe was fact concerning the two firms. I feel
> comfortable saying there was apparently a very substantial
> relationship that started quite a bit earlier than has been
> thought and that relationship ended for reasons Flash is now
> trying to understand. In my attempt to learn about Hetchins over
> the past couple years I have heard repeated more than once an
> allegation that collectors believe Hetchins quality deteriorated
> in some way correlating with their involvement with Bob Jackson.
> This opinion gets a little weird when you see the dates. Flash, I
> believe is looking for physical proof of that allegation among
> several other aspects of the story, hence my earlier post. The
> Super Legend is indeed very Hetchins like and from a source,
> other than Flash, I believe it appeared in the Bob Jackson line
> up after they stopped making for Hetchins. All the vibrant stays
> came from Reynolds shaped that way as I understand it. The lugs
> for either brand from other suppliers, I also believe. So
> "proprietariness" while repected was most so for the brand. I
> think the actual story of how Bob Jackson came to offer its own
> version will soon be clear.
>
> As Flash says - stay tuned.
>
> Tom Rawson
> Oakland, CA
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Brandon Ives" <monkeylad@mac.com>
> To: "Thomas Rawson" <twrawson@worldnet.att.net>;
> <Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Cc: "Dale Brown" <oroboyz@aol.com>; "Brian Baylis"
> <rocklube@adnc.com>; "flash" <flash@flashq.de>
> Sent: Monday, September 30, 2002 4:48 PM
> Subject: Re: [CR]HELP WITH HETCHINS PLEASE!
>
> > Ok this is actually a question I was thinking about this
> weekend.
> > The Bob Jackson's on
> > http://www.classicrendezvous.com/
> sure look
> > like Hetchins' to me, but I'm no expert. I saw another Super
> Legend
> > on a different page this weekend (can't remember the URL or the
> name
> > of the page now) that had real Hetchins Magnum Opus lugs. I
> can't
> > imagine Hetchins allowing one of its contract builders to use
> their
> > proprietary lugs. Did Jackson have some kind of deal with
> Hetchins?
> > thanks,
> > Brandon"monkeyman"Ives
> > SB, CA
> >
> > At 3:03 PM -0700 9/30/02, Thomas Rawson wrote:
> > >Relative to my post last week discussing the Bob Jackson -
> > >Hetchins History there is now a very active inquiry going on
> > >between Flash, creator of the unofficial Hetchins website,
> > >( http://www.hetchins.org/
> Jackson
> > > and others who were around at the time being
> > >discussed (mid 1970s to mid 1990s). Recent revelations have
> > >revealed a different perspective on who was making what/when,
> > >than has more popularly been thought to be the case. Help is
> > >requested from the CR community to discover any details that
> > >might be relevant. Desired is any sort of proof of differences
> in
> > >quality thought to be the result of source of manufacture.
> Serial
> > >numbers, photo documentation. etc would be helpful. Anyone
> > >interested in contributing please contact Flash @
> > >webster@hetchins.org .
> > >
> > >Tom Rawson
> > >Oakland, CA
> > >
> > >
> > >_______________________________________________
> >
> >
> > --
> > ++++++++++++++
> > "Nobody can do everything, but if everybody
> > did something everything would get done."
> > --Gil Scott-Heron--
> > ++++++++++++++
> > Elfie and Monkeyboy's Wurld uv Wunder
> > http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/
> > ++++++++++++++