e-MONKEY,
e-RICHIE here...
this is a good thread.
face quality and alignment issues are over-rated
and usually misunderstood. i've never concerned
myself with the relationship between the bearing
aassembly and the faces; i've always used campagnolo
or other quality parts. they've performed well despite
irregularities (minor ones) in face measurements.
in my assembly, facing quality equals alignment
ease. i rectify all faces with the campagnolo facing
tool, even though all my shells arrive here faced!
this way i can make my own tolerances and my
standard is set before the frame is built. i always
put the drive side of the frame facing up when a
check on the table is made. i never flip the frame over
because i'll never get a repeat reading from the
opposite side. it used to make me nuts because
i couldn't intellectualize this. additionally, and this
is very important, i NEVER face my frames after
they're built. i DO NOT want to alter in any way
the facing job i initially created. having done this
way back when, upon completion i would take a
perfectly well aligned frame, face it again, (why? i don't know),
and realize this operation would yield a mis-aligned
reading on the table. lesson: however small the difference,
the facers don't always plane down the shell evenly.
so, i do it once, initially, and never do followups.
if someone takes my frame after the fact and cuts the
shell, there's no way for me to make it read 'aligned'
on my table after that.
e-RICHIE