Listmembers,
I actually did write somwhat of a responce to the question "is quality e volutionary?". It became too complex. There are too many loose deffiniti ons for the key terms like "quality", "better", and evolution. Evolution is technically always forward. I do not believe all long time framebuil ders are going forward based on my deffinition. But that's just me.
My feeling is that if you do NOT put in every skill and every bit of wha t you've learned over the years in every frame in the form of design and craftsmanship, you would be a "normal" framebuilder. Most of the "old t imers" gave up trying to do something special on every frame long ago. A s Steve mentioned, they get conservative, but are consistant. What I see of the younger builders who want to demonstrate "talent" is that they g o for some sort of fashion and try to be creative visually, when in fact they should still be working on the basics of sound perportions and gra ceful curves and the basics of good framebuilding. A lot of "modern fram ebuilding" involves the use of fancy machining and technical processes t hat have very little to do with handcraftsmanship. All that takes is a b ig checkbook. Most of us don't have that or prefer to have the work come from our own hands. Little framebuilders acting like big companies anno ys me.
Distilling the process down to the most basic form is what most builders are looking for. Just look at what passes for lugwork in many cases tod ay. I think very few old time builders are actually evolving. Each has t heir own deffinition of what better is and what evolving means. I don't agree with much of it at all. If everything is the same then where's the evolution. Do things you haven't done before, but do it using all of yo ur skill and experience and make something special. No need for experien ced builders to design things to get attention. Mature design tends to f ocus on solving problems that exist and making the bike a better machine . I saw a case of this today while visiting JB. I saw a Goodrich frame u ndergoing paint. I noticed a nice treatment he came up with for locating the cable guides for the modern shifters; but he didn't stick them on t he side of his nicely shaped lugs like some sort of Frankenstien monster . He made a nice pillar and base from some frame bits normally used in o ther places and brazed them nicely to the down tube. Nicely done. A good solution involving some thinking and extra work that actually serves a purpose. That's a framebuilder evolving in a froward direction. Evolving framebuilders are generally making actual custom frames and learning an d solving every day. The routine type of building is a different thing. They have a different type of evolution going. Mainly towards effeciency and standardization.
Anyway, my thing got out of hand. It's a huge topic if completely delved into. I don't have time to talk about it, need the time for DOING it.
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA