In a message dated 11/6/02 6:00:16 PM Pacific Standard Time, richardsachs@juno.com writes:
<< fwiw, i still would like to know what folks think about this 'division of labor' topic because feel it's central to the thread regarding the letter of authenticity. >>
Regarding division of labor, this is just my opinion and I should note, I
never got this far, I did all the work on my own frames because I never made
that many. The thing that makes or breaks a frame is the mitering and the
brazing. Filing, both prep for sand cast fittings and clean up is deadly dull
and tedious. Faliero, at least late in production (70s) used "master frames"
to set the jigs. Using him as an example, if he mitered the tubes, assembled
the tubes in the jig and brazed it, I would consider that he "built" the
frame, even if he didn't finish file it.
Let's push this a bit farther. Say he hires someone to do the mitering...say
he has this same guy assemble the tubes in the jig and he comes over and
"just brazes" it. Since I feel rather strongly that a bad torch man can just
completely murder a set of tubes, I would be "ok" with owning a frame that
was "just brazed" by the master with all the prep work done by "the
apprentices" and would probably feel it was "brazed" but not fully "built" by
the master. If that's where he was in his career cycle, I'd feel lucky to
have that. I'm making a rather fine distinction because I'm particular and
this illustrates a "shade of gray" in the process.
This goes back to the whole craft thing of master and apprentice, it's how
apprentices learn. Historically after 4 years as an apprentice you qualify as
a journeyman. IF you have what it takes, after 20 more years of applying
yourself, you may be a "master" of the craft. The journeyman is probably
doing more of his own work in terms of total frame building. When there gets
to be enough work that getting an apprentice makes sense, you have to give
them more to do that just push a broom around the shop. A really good
apprentice will WANT to learn how to do all this. It's an ever present
problem, in that as soon as they really know enough to be any good (and make
up for all the time you put into teaching them) they leave!
If in 1950 whatever, Faliero got an order to build 20 bikes for a team, and
he had someone slot for drop outs and do the prep filing on the Fischer
crowns, bottom brackets and whatever, and HE did the design, assembly and
brazing of all the frame tubes. I would consider those Faliero built frames.
That's orders of magnitude different from contracting out the building or
having someone else in house do all the work.
That's my nickel's worth.
Stevan Thomas
Alameda, CA