Norris is spot on. I worked for Bud's Bike Shop in Claremont, CA in the late '70s and built a number of Taylor tandems. The brothers came to visit and told exactly the same story on how Norm finished the welds. Amazing! When I was at Santana, on the other hand, the welds were filed smooth.
Mark Ritz Tandem Geek Arcata, California, USA http://www.kinetic-koffee.com
BTW, I'll have an updated Interbike Koffee Klatch list out today.
Norris stated: Snip< I asked Norman how much time he spent in filing up the beads, whether he did the finishing as the frame-building process went from stage to stage, joint to joint, if he filed up each joint as soon as he had brazed it..or whether he completed the whole frame and then set about filing it.
For some long years I had been building a lot of lugless frames, including some tandems, and I had developed the system of filing up each weld as I we nt along eg the head tube to top tube joint, before this assembly was joind to the down tube or the seat tube. To my mind there was nothing more diffi cult, time-consuming, and awkward than trying to hold a completed frame, ma in triangle and stays intact, in a vice, and trying to perform accurate a nd fine finshing of the welded joints. I suppose that in asking Norman the question I assumed that after so many decades of frame-building, he must ha ve perfected a technique that he could offer to slightly younger builders s uch as myself.
I remember Norman cocking his head to one side a little, screwing his eyes up inscrutably as he pondered the depth of my questioning, or perhaps the sun was shining in his direction, and delivering in his Geordy accent thes e words of wisdom " I dont!"
He went on to explain that after welding a joint, he would change the
torch
's nozzle for the smallest in the box and just use it to "tickle over
the r
ipples...smooth them out...like" As Jack explained, in order to provide
add
itional clarification - "We're frame-builders, lad, not mechanical
engineer
s!" >end snip