Originally Posted by
kbarch
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The connections aren't lugged in the conventional way: funny as it sounds, it's more like they are glued and taped together. The ends are precisely cut, prepped, then joined and taped over with carbon fiber fabric. We saw connections in varying stages of completion, and amazingly the finished product was so carefully executed that one can finish it with a clear coat - it all looked like one continuous weave. Sublime.
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The workmanship I was talking about in my post above. I used to be a laminator making very light off-shore racing sailboats. We did such good work that we used almost no sand paper and no power tools to clean up our work. (The final layup got one hand swipe of 36 grit sandpaper to get the tiny glass hairs that if not sanded, become very sharp splinters after the final paint. The edges of each layer were left entirely visible and got two swipes. We took real pride in doing good work that always be visible.
Rather unrelated except not entirely - I go to see a TiCycles steel fork that had been cut up for a forensics study. So I got to see the braze at the top of the fork crown at the fork blade end. The braze had a perfect radius like it was machined except that until the blade was sawn in half, tools and human eyes had never seen it. (And the finish was matte; ie raw braze, not a polished machined surface.) My point? High quality and good looking work can be done in places that can not be seen but it does take skill and care.
If I am going to trust my life to a two pound frame of plastic as I go 50 mph down a mountain road, I want work that looks like it is up to the job. Yes, I know well from my fiberglass experience that you can do good looking work with fatal flaws but on the poor quality work, you cannot even look for those flaws.
Ben