Jon3084@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 11/7/2004 2:11:23 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> JohnThompson@new.rr.com writes:
>
> Dave Tesch was hired as a
> brazer about a year after I was hired.
>
> John,
>
> Tesch and Joe Starck, wow was that a volatile combination?
Well, Tesch had quite a personality. Joe was actually very new to
bicycles at that time.
> I have a Tesch track frame that was brazed in 81. Before Dave died he
> confirmed that it was the second frame he brazed with Tesch Decals. I
> had heard, but Dave did not confirm that it was brazed at trek after
> hours.
Yes, at that time Trek actually encouraged people to work on their own projects after work hours. That changed later when we went to multiple shifts and the equipment no longer had extensive down time. One of the employee benefits in the early years was parts to build your own frame -- tubing, lugs, dropouts, etc. for Trek's cost. You don't want to hear what this cost was; it still makes me cry when I look at retail prices these days. Any employee could get this; those of us who brazed or wanted to learn to braze built them up ourselves after hours; others would strike a deal with one of the brazers to build a frame for them. The track frame pictured on my web site (http://www.os2.dhs.org/pictures/gallery/bikes) is a frame I built for one of the guys in sales, but I built that one in my basement. The last couple pictures of the painted frame were taken in the Trek factory.
Tesch also build many of his early frames at Mike Appel's (another Trek alumnus) shop in Madison. If you remember the early Trek advertisements with two men in the shop, Mike Appel was the guy with the long hair; Dick Nolan (chief machinist) was the fellow with the dark hair and beard.
--
-John Thompson (john@os2.dhs.org)
Appleton WI USA