OK, now I'll make it official, everyone is back working together
Both Merlin (now ABG) and Seven Cycles have their hands in producing our titanium frames.
A few months ago, ABG decided to stop building custom frames altogether and concentrate their titanium efforts only on production Litespeed frames. The news put a big lump in my throat since there are things that ABG can do that are very difficult to find anywhere else. As it turned out, my fears were completely unfounded. ABG is happy to continue supplying us with all of the materials that we have always had access to.
And this is where Seven Cycles comes in. I've known and worked with the founders of Seven since their days at Merlin. Going forward, Seven will fabricate our titanium frames with materials that ABG supplies. This sounds a bit convoluted, but it actually makes a lot sense. There is enough tooling and programming in place at ABG dedicated to our frames that it would be quite expensive for Seven to tool up to produce our frame materials themselves.
I want to publicly thank the folks at ABG who have made this transition possible for us; Peter, Jeff, Brad and Tres.
And working with my old friends at Seven again has been nothing less than wonderful. Rob, Jennifer, Matt and Skip have been very accommodating and professional. Always keeping me up to date with shop procedures and delivering what they promised.
The hardest part of the transition for me is that I no longer have someone in the Engineering Department at ABG doing my AutoCAD drawings for me. I have to do them all myself now.
So, the best of both worlds; materials that I am accustomed to produced to the exact specs that I want and frame builders who are as good as it gets. Boy, I feel right at home.
So, Happy New Year and thanks for reading.
Re: OK, now I'll make it official, everyone is back working together
I profess ignorance and thought you were all inclusive and made all your own steel & ti frames in that cool barn of yours?
Where do those incredible paint jobs get done?
Is your biz model more of a focus on design/fit, and the fab work & materials are outsourced? Or do you do some fab work yourself?