Ann,
I'm holding almost exactly what you are holding at this moment. I have my Monte #2 in hand in the raw condition as you described. The roughness that you see is the sand cast finish of the original Fischer BB shell; the exact same shell used on Cinellis up until the investment cast age. Both of my frames are like that, the sockets for all of the tubes were filed and the entire top of the BB shell is (bastard) filed, leavinf only the area from the DT socket back to the chainstay sockets unfiled. The nice milling of the BB shell goes through this area which is the underside of the BB shell. The filers left about 5 mins. or less of filing undone. No big deal really. I left my first frame just as it is and painted it. Lots of people have looked at the beautiful bike and never get around to critiquing the finish on the bottom of the shell. Frame #2 is slated for a slightly more involved finish, so I'm going to file the shell smooth. 5 minutes work. The frame is built with heaps of Italian framebuilding charm. Tell you what, I'll pack my bike for UPS pick up and shipping to Greensboro; I must do this now and then I will tell you what has attracted me to two of these frames.
Back later. Busy, busy.
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA
>
> Well, ok, everyone probably gets exotic steel frames every day, so its not
> too exciting for you all <g>. Plus, I think many of you have made a few,
> yourselves
>
> Anyway, I got my Monte and while it didn't end up on my pillow or anything
> last night, I have spent plenty of time admiring it. Its the first raw
> frame I've ever had, and it is really neat to see how it was
> constructed. The way the drop outs attach to the stays, is quite elegant.
>
> Questions, though... It looks kind of unfinished, file marks and all. The
> underside of the bottom bracket is kind of rough. How do those flaws get
> removed/smoothed before paint?
>
> Ann Phillips
> Atlanta GA