Originally Posted by
Jipe
Interesting video about the Lynskey factory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJDea5mSUJY
I must say that I was more impressed by the Nevi factory video/frame building process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seUi2KRj4U4
What both video show is that the welding is just one step of the frame building and that there are a lot of steps needed to build a quality titanium frame, a welding robot only helps for one step, all the other remains. Together, all those steps take a lot of effort and explain the high manufacturing costs of a titanium frame, savings during the welding step won't dramatically reduce the manufacturing costs.
What the video shows is that they weld the frame by hand, that's a step that Helix eliminates, saving time and $$$ (if the cost of the robot is ignored) - anyone want to concede that by eliminating expensive labor with the robot that's why they can make the whole operation pencil out. Much of everything else I can wager can be done with south of the US workers.