i am completely blown away by the t r?wson post text
exposing the hetchins history.

i never knew how all those tens of 1000s of lugs were cut;
i never really pondered it. but i never understood how their
business model could survive if each lug was 'lovingly' massaged
by hand, thus imparting some of the maker's soul into the finished
product. from reading the text, it appears as if cutting one lug at a
time by hand was almost never done, 'ceptin for show frames or
prototypes. i meeeean, where _is_ the mojo!!!??

through the ages, hetchins was the archetypical 'hand-made'
frame company. they, essentially, put ornate lugwork on the map.
and now, unless i missed something, i read that from the gitgo they
explored methods to reduce handwork and to find ways to gain
'repeatability' in their lug making. from my vantage point 'riveting 12
sheets of metal together to gang up on the design execution' (i'm
paraphrasing here...) is not unlike casting the fancy cutouts and
shorelines into the finished piece-and they did THAT too!

all this, juxtaposed against yesterday's "opinions" regarding the
merits of, say, Nagasawa cast track dropouts or similarly pre-
fabbed framebuilding parts...it appears to me that seeking efficiency
and finding production methods that reduce handlabor have been
part of this industry all along. the text suggests that it could've been
pioneered by, of all folks, hetchins. (heard from the crowds,
"ooos" and "ahhhhhs").

i am not writing this to troll. or to say that handwork never existed.
or that it only existed until methods were found to circumvent them.
personally, i like massaging and sculpting dropouts, and i like re-
working dubois lugs into refined and elegant shapes. heck, i even
think Pinarello Princes are cool.

on the other hand, from reading the t r?wson post on hetchins'
history at least THREE times, some of my questions are
answered and many more new ones now come to mind.
e-RICHIE