3dvvitch 

Does this name ring a bell for anyone? I'm asking because someone on a different forum mentioned that a Jim Reese in Detroit might have welded titanium frames for Pino Morroni after he was through with his experiments in lugged and brazed titanium construction.

Thanks!

chaadster

Reese is not familiar to me, but an interesting connection I’d like to know more about!

'02 nrs

good question for Jeff at Kinetic bicycle.they had a pino hanging in the showroom a few years past( or longer).maybe its upstairs with Doug? I learned of the only person who was able to enter the house of Pino after he passed & purchased 2 bicycles from the store. Kinetic Systems Bicycles ? Kinetic Systems Bicycles

unterhausen

Pino had connections in fabrication, he could just be a welder.

I wonder if Dave Porter would know.

Andrew R Stewart 

Or Doug Fattic. Andy

Doug Fattic 

I'm on the other side of the state so I've had little contact with those over in Detroit. I'm twice as far from Detroit as Chicago. So no I have no idea about who might have been Pino's welder. I do remember that when I was learning in England in 1975, I went to the York Festival - a kind of bike show where lots of enthusiasts showed up to see exhibits - and meeting a young American guy in Pino's booth showing his latest offerings. Of course I don't remember his name or anything more about him.

Road Fan

I wonder if Mark Agree would know?

3dvvitch 

Here's my update:

Dave Porter answered my question on the subject by suggesting that it was Cecil Behringer... I think it's possible that I didn't word my question quite right, as I was under the impression that Behringer preferred his unique brazing system throughout his career, and never got into tig welding. But of course I could be wrong about that.

Jeff at Kinetic Systems says that he doesn't know, because Pino was in Italy a lot in the 80s.

I'm still waiting for a response from Mark Agree.

One way or the other, it still seems that Greg Boggs is the only one who knows anything about a Jim Reese in Detroit. I've searched and searched and not found anything on a builder matching that name.

I'll post again once I've got word from Mark Agree.

unterhausen

Moved here from framebuilding. Hopefully we can get some fresh eyes on the question.

Road Fan

Thanks, Unterhausen! Being an Ann Arbor resident and a not-recent immigrant to Michigan, I don't have this deeper history. But I would like to find skilled persons in the Southeast Michigan environment. It's amazing to me that talented cycling folks lived and worked here in the '50s into perhaps the '90s, but no branches of those trees survive today. I am pleased to use the services of say, Assenmacher, Ralph Ellis, Trumbull, Fattic, and Boi, but as we all age and retire, not that many practitioners are known without seeking on the East and West Coasts. This may be a flyover area, but it is not a pedal-through area.

CO_Hoya 

Another person to ask may be Mark Nobilette, as he was bulding frames in Ann Arbor through the 80's (?) before moving to CO.

unterhausen

The one time I got to meet Pino was in Milwaukee before a race. I just sat there and listened to him talk. He was incredibly inventive. He came to Trek and tried to sell them one of his fixtures but they didn't want to pay, so they wasted a lot of time building one of their own. Not sure it ever saw service. Their original fixtures were pretty clever. His were beautifully machined, I'm pretty sure Dave Porter has one.

Greg Boggs

I believe Jim Reese was a toolroom welder at Chrysler, where Pino once worked as a Master gauge builder at Dodge Main Assy.

Pino wasn't a welder. He could stick something together with a TIG welder, or tack with a MIG but that was pretty much it. The only titanium welding that I KNOW he performed, was tacking the prototype bottle cage for the triangular Pino bottle (the very bottle cage that Mark Agree has on his bike.)
There was a Syncrowave at Mike Otti's shop in Clawson, where most of Pino's work was being done but I never saw him use it.

My belief that it was Jim who was welding for him, comes from a pissed-off angry fit that Pino threw at Kinetic Systems in the late '80's. Pino was unable to get the price he wanted on a set of wheels, so he CUT THEM UP. He used my diagonal cutters to chop the titanium spokes out of the wheel which he then gathered in a bunch. He said he was giving the spokes to Jim, to use as welding rod...

I was never fortunate enough to meet Mr. Reese but you may be able to find more info from Mike Otti (he is on the pino-telavio facebook group). Mike and Pino, were business partners in a machine shop prior us meeting.

As someone who was in the scene back then, I don't know anyone in the local cycling community who would have been competent to perform this kind of work.

Greg Boggs

The sad truth is, Cecil was far too ill to have done this. Pino and I had planned for years to visit Cecil but there was never a window of opportunity because he was always very weak back then.