Well, Dale, what about a fillet-brazed Jack Taylor, or any number of classic bikes? Much as I like lugs, I have to admit I find the ability to make one tube seem to merge seamlessly into another on a fillet-brazed frame pretty darned artistic as well. One of my biggest problems with many modern TIGed frames is that they seem to go out of their way to make the bead large and obvious.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Houston, TX
OROBOYZ@aol.com wrote: In a message dated 11/10/2004 6:28:32 AM Eastern Standard Time, w.rentschler@mac.com writes:
<< Learn to TIG weld, and when you can smoothly and cleanly join very thin-walled steel tubes with a tiny weld, or, as a challenge, perhaps two beer cans or some stainless steel foil, then I just _know_ you will gain a new perspective, and see beauty and soul where you now see none. "Soul," for my money, is poured into a creation by the builder, and is not dependent upon any specific technique. >>
Hi Tony:
I am afraid I couldn't disagree more. The ability to weld that well, the tumbled down row of coins, the smooth & almost perfect stack of beads, is technique, an acquired skill, which IMO is unfortunately still not any more creative than playing a video game well. When you get up to leave, there is not much of a trace of your individualism nor any residual additive element.
Of course, building with lugs doesn't guarantee that soul or creative spark gets put into play either. You can just plug parts together, without any change or modification, which can be a boring exercise that fails to set your work apart from any other drone-like assembly person.
I always think of Grant Petersen's words (he weaves them so well..) "Two hundred years from now, a Rivendell, or a Heron, or an Atlantis, will be identifiable even if it's stripped of paint, rusted and crusty and covered in cobwebs in your great great great great great great great granddaughter's attic, or strangled in ivy as a cherished decoration in her garden" That of course is due to the lugs and could never be the case in an anonymous weld.
In fact, this "sign of the differentiated hand" or Persona or whatever we want to call it, is what I see in the best of bikes, and this level of craft even artistry is exactly what the Classic Rendezvous celebrates ..... and that's why welding will most probably always be OT.
Dale Brown
Greensboro, NC