Originally Posted by
conorb
Great question, Richard. From a builder’s perspective, polishing adds a significant amount of time the framebuilding process, this time investment has a relatively low financial return, and sanding stainless lugs is, frankly, not very fun. From a customer perspective, the polishing adds a significant amount of cost to the frame without adding anything to its function. So what on earth would cause a builder or customer to “go down the stainless path?”
For us, the answer is at the core of why we build custom bicycles in the first place: Because that’s what our customers want, and we can do a good job of it. We’ve made essentially this same decision in other aspects of building frames. For example liquid paint is less durable than powder coating, as well as being more expensive, so why go liquid? The answer is simple: liquid paint provides a depth and variety of color that simply can’t be matched with powder, and it doesn’t bury our lug lines.
The simple fact that lugged steel bicycles are generally not economically viable for the mass producers provides custom builders with an opportunity to provide something more unique and special for our customers. And after waiting for many months and paying thousands of dollars for a bicycle, we believe we owe our customers something special. Polishing stainless is simply an extension of this philosophy—adding a labor-intensive process that makes a custom bicycle more special for the rider. This is the reason that about 2/3 of our customers commission some sort of polishing on their bicycles—lugs, stem, or logos.
Thanks,
Conor & Garrett
Bookmarks