Mr. Sachs opined:
define "worse". that also is a question of esthetics. will employing this technique lead to a failure? i doubt it. is a builder responsible for creating art? prolly. is a bronze welded joint so lacking in style that it needs an added decoration to get a crowd formed around it? i think the builders from "that" era must have thought so. e-RICHIE chester, ct
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Just as a side note, as in "there was something for every taste" I've bought and sold a charming pink Jack Taylor curved-tube from the early 70s with a truly lovely pin-stripe job that was fillet-brazed, and a nicer job of it would be hard to find.
In addition, I recently acquired a 1950s Gillot L'Atlantique, for my girlfriend, also fillet-brazed, and it's something to behold.... the new Argos flamboyant paint alone is worth a second look..the fillet job is exemplary, and quite pleasant to look at, if you like that kind of thing. This frame also has that double-bevel, wrap-around seat-stay treatment that's really very pretty.
Chuck has a Gillot with the Egg-style lugs, and this stunning marble-ized blue paint that would look just fine on a fillet-brazed frame..that paint-job, which was/is original to the frame, would make *anything* look good.
Seems to me, in any era, the frame what gets made, gets made to suit the customer, be it a bike-shop owner who's trying to move the frame at a profit, or an individual client who happens to like lots of victorian fru-fru on their tube-joints (so to speak ;> )... and, since our taste is in our mouths, there's never any accounting for it..
Charles "tasteful sometimes, tasteless others" Andrews socal