SpeedofLite 

steelbikeguy

one of my favorite articles from the late-but-esteemed Bicycle Guide!

I wonder how much it helped Richard's sales, or if he already had a years long waiting list at that time??

Steve in Peoria

bulgie 

This pic cracks me up:

(Ooh, he's got the same Columbian vise as me, cool.)

The pose is a variation on the one he ran as an ad in bike magazines for years. I believe it's an in-joke, which no one will get unless they've seen the inside of one of those lugs. His Samson lugs are minimalist everywhere, but especially right there where his file is resting, they are below the minimum there IMHO, so it's the one place you must never file. A file as coarse as the one he's holding would ruin that lug with one stroke.

Sorry about the poor focus, the pic is from Sachs's website, with red arrows added by me. Can you make out how the part of the head tube bore, between the DT bore and the outer edge (shoreline), is only about a millimeter? Nothing to spare.

The other reason I know he doesn't really file there: the simple fact that all the edges on a Samson lug are perfect, as delivered. You can't improve them with a file anywhere, much less right there.

e-RICHIE

Mark

Always happy to make you laugh.

The article was a result of three full days of photography in my studio by Michael Furman. Every single image was staged by him and his assistant, not unlike (I’m assuming) food stylists do when shooting for a recipe book. The magazine only printed seven pages so you can imagine how many hundreds of pictures ended up on the cutting room floor.

I still use that vice daily at work.

rccardr 

Boom.
It gets no better than this.
P6206842 by Doc Mertes, on Flickr
IMG_7306 by Doc Mertes, on Flickr

Kabuki12

A couple of fine machines, Doc!

steelbikeguy

One of my take-aways from this thread is just how much Bicycle Guide emphasized excellent photography... even if it drove the subject a bit crazy or ate up a lot of time.
I suppose the photographer might have gone a bit overboard at times, emphasizing the composition and drama of a photo at the expense of depicting the actual truth of what was being photographed.
What's that old saying... "never let the truth get in the way of a good story"??

I poked through my scanned articles from Bicycle Guide and there were a few articles on the subject of framebuilding. One was titled "The Art of Steel", in the April 1996 issue. The purpose of the article was to look at the differences between lugged frames, fillet brazed frames, and tig'ed frames. It included photos of Peter Weigle and John Slawta (of Landshark). These photos don't look to be as heavily staged as those of Mr. Sachs... but I'm still curious if Mark B. or others can comment on where the photographer took liberties to make it look more dramatic.

The title page of the article:



Mr. Weigle at work:



Mr. Slawta doing his thing:



and a nice comparison of the internal details of the three techniques:



Bicycle Guide was an excellent bike magazine, and I do appreciate their fine work!


Steve in Peoria
(the full article is on flickr. Just search for "the art of steel")

Kabuki12

This is a great article for anyone who does old school work with our hands. I don’t know much about frame building but I used to visit my friend in Oxnard who built frames in his small bike shop where I bought my first light weight bike. I would sharpen his cutters for him or get stuff made for his jig at our huge tool room where I was an apprentice. I still make cutting tools the way I was trained to do 50 years ago on manual machines that are more like extensions of my arms and hands. I had CNC machines that I produced mass quantities of surgical tools and other cutting tools but it wasn’t very rewarding ….actually more like work! I have since sold off the CNC’s and now doing custom work on my manual machines and it is very rewarding , even after over 50 years of grinding. Hand work , like this article exemplifies, is like art and jewelry creation.

steelbikeguy

Extra points for the yellow flowers in the background! Nicely done.

Steve in Peoria

Chuckk

2005 NAHBS - several pinned frames.

mpetry912 

let me tell you, it comes thru in the ride. My RS 25th Anniversary model is so darn straight, you can feel it. The bike tracks like a laser.

/markp

Classtime 

Above and beyond. One day I'll get on of these:

Then I can save my Campy bolt for whatever.

t2p

e-RICHIE e-RICHIE - do you recall any discussions with (or visits ?) a friend / frame builder Jack Marchetti from western PA / Pittsburgh area ?

e-RICHIE

Sadly, it's not a name I recognize.

obrentharris 

The comment about lugs, investment cast versus stamped, is an interesting one. I remember well how we all wanted frames with investment cast lugs when they first arrived on the scene. Now that investment cast is dominant, many collectors are looking for the earlier frames with the stamped lugs from the high prestige builders such as Mr. Sachs, DeRosa, and Masi, more for reasons of aesthetics and rarity than for the benefits described by Mr. Sachs.
Brent

tgot 

Great article! Thanks for posting and for all the comments, I love learning about these things.

A question: What type of files are shown in the first page? The round file that I learned as 'rat tail's style looks like it's toothed as I have used.

But the flat files look to have a pebbly surface, like a coarse Emory cloth. I've never used files like that, always with cut-slotted teeth. Mine is admittedly very limited metalworking experience...but I'm curious!

How are those made? Used? Sharpened?

Or is it a digitization artifact of the photo?

georges1

two very fine and nice bikes

sbarner 

Any excuse to show off my '82 Strada Immaculata. It now has a C-Record crank, not that there's anything wrong with the Chorus in the photo. Built when RS still had a young man's hair. I would have built it up with proper SR group, but a previous owner had divers' helmets brazed on where the shift levers should be.

P!N20

That's certainly a commitment to bar end shifters.

(Same sbarner as the regular commentator on BSNYC?)

sbarner 

No telling when it was done, or why. The person I bought it from was at least the second owner, and he didn't pass any info about it along. All I know is that Richard said it didn't leave his shop that way. At some point someone clamped shifters just above the stops, but I stuck a Campagnolo decal over the munged paint.