on 12/11/09 8:29 AM, Steve Palincsar at palin...@his.com wrote: > On Fri, 2009-12-11 at 08:02 -0800, CycloFiend wrote: > >> I think the inherent flaw is the idea of a "gorgeous" tig-welded bicycle >> frame. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with that method of frame >> building, but they've never struck me as particularly good looking. > > I have a titanium Santana with welded joints that are almost > indistinguishable from fillet brazing. Between those gorgeous welds and > the high polish of the titanium, the bike looks better than chromed > fillet brazed steel. But, that's definitely an exception, and I've > never seen steel welding that looked like that. > > I've seen some welded steel bikes with beads that are so small and > uniform as to be virtually invisible. The tubes simply look as though > they've been placed together with no obvious visible reason for them to > stay together. > > Whether a bike like that is "gorgeous" or not depends, I think, on the > paint job. The welds do nothing to detract from it; nor do they dictate > the design of the paint, the way lugs often do. A panel paint job can > look quite nice on a welded bike, for example. Given the right > accessories, so too can a single solid color; from a distance, with some > colors, you couldn't notice lug detail or even the presence of lugs, so > there's no difference between the visual impact of a lugged or a welded > frame. > > I think many of the welded Tournesols look every bit as gorgeous as the > lugged ones, for example. They tend to have fairly low key paint (black > or taupe) and the fenders and other silver bits predominate.
-- Jim Edgar cyclofi...@earthlink.net Cyclofiend Bicycle Photo Galleries - http://www.cyclofiend.com Current Classics - Cross Bikes Singlespeed - Working Bikes Send In Your Photos! - Here's how: http://www.cyclofiend.com/guidelines "'You both ride your bike?' He held his hands out and grabbed imaginary handlebars, grinning indulgently, eyeing Tom's helmet. Double disbeleif: not one, but two grown Americans riding bicycles." -- Neal Stephenson, "Zodiac" -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
