Re: Quality Building: Bikefanclub.com

The "sin" as such is the penetration of the braze and the completeness of the work with the torch. However, like I said, whether this is done perfectly or merely adequately, the frame is very unlikely to fail. Lugged construction holds up unless it is done poorly, not just imperfectly. TIG welds also hold up well if they are done neatly and evenly or if they are done in less pleasing ways. With all due respect to great TIG welders, I think there is no aesthetic comparison between even the best TIG welds and a nice lugged steel bike. Everyone has their preferences. TIG, as far as I am concerned, is only for bikes that can't be brazed because of tubing diameters or design concerns.

When you look at the flow of the brazing material from the inside (only possible with that hacksaw...) you see how far and how evenly it moved through the lug. Also, you can see if the joint was over-heated; things scorch and burn and start to melt; none of these are good things. However, to say this again, a bike joint can put up with a lot of indignity before it fails. Further, it doesn't have to be perfectly done to be perfectly strong enough. Strong enough is not the same as perfectly done either. It's not really the strength of the joint that is at stake past a certain point of competence. Rather, it is the skill of the brazing as such which adds up to very little if things are done competently enough. When a joint is really sloppy in brazing with little penetration or a burnt joint then you may have a bike that will eventually fail but, as we all know, this is rare enough even when joints are cooked by machines and suffer other indignities as well. Looking at a lug sawed across is an exercise in "quality" that is hard to quantify: it is partly for safely, partly for competence and skill, partly for aesthetics, but all of those issues are ameliorated in light of the simple fact that bikes hold together (for the most part), that builders only have to be competent enough, and that this is a level of aesthetics invisible to the eye even if the frame has no paint.

dbrk

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