Originally Posted by
cyccommute
A custom aluminum frame would actually cost a lot more than a custom steel frame. While aluminum is fairly cheap to anneal on a large scale, An individual frame maker would have to anneal the frames one at a time which would be horribly expensive. Large scale production of aluminum is cheap to anneal because you can anneal a large number of frames at a time.
Even a village smithy working under a chestnut tree could economically build a steel frame?