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Old 04-08-21, 06:14 AM
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Greg Boggs
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Originally Posted by 3dvvitch
Does this name ring a bell for anyone? I'm asking because someone on a different forum mentioned that a Jim Reese in Detroit might have welded titanium frames for Pino Morroni after he was through with his experiments in lugged and brazed titanium construction.

Thanks!
I believe Jim Reese was a toolroom welder at Chrysler, where Pino once worked as a Master gauge builder at Dodge Main Assy.

Pino wasn't a welder. He could stick something together with a TIG welder, or tack with a MIG but that was pretty much it. The only titanium welding that I KNOW he performed, was tacking the prototype bottle cage for the triangular Pino bottle (the very bottle cage that Mark Agree has on his bike.)
There was a Syncrowave at Mike Otti's shop in Clawson, where most of Pino's work was being done but I never saw him use it.

My belief that it was Jim who was welding for him, comes from a pissed-off angry fit that Pino threw at Kinetic Systems in the late '80's. Pino was unable to get the price he wanted on a set of wheels, so he CUT THEM UP. He used my diagonal cutters to chop the titanium spokes out of the wheel which he then gathered in a bunch. He said he was giving the spokes to Jim, to use as welding rod...

I was never fortunate enough to meet Mr. Reese but you may be able to find more info from Mike Otti (he is on the pino-telavio facebook group). Mike and Pino, were business partners in a machine shop prior us meeting.

As someone who was in the scene back then, I don't know anyone in the local cycling community who would have been competent to perform this kind of work.
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