There is an old story about Pablo Picasso. Lady comes up to him, asks for an autograph. He does it and she then asks if he would do a little doodle on the paper. He does it and as he hands the doodle/autograph back, he says $50K please. The lady is indignant. How dare you charge me $50K for a doodle that took you a minute to make, she said. Picasso replied, I'm charging you the 50 years it took to give me the ability to make that doodle.
The idea you can take a class and master a craft is asinine. Anyone to suggest it has never made a thing in their life. Do yo need the 10,000 hours as the lore says? Probably not. But 40 hours in a class ain't gonna cut it at all. I believe an apprenticeship is the best means of learning a trade, beats school hands down.
I will also say I have never met Sachs in person. He may be the greatest person in person for all I know. On the other hand I also know what he writes is just BS. This isn't the first dumb **** thing he wrote, I'm betting it ain't the last.
Now, I need to to get my princess ass as sensitive as Doc's so I can feel that pea.
I understand the value of an Apprenticeship having successfully completed one as a Tool & Die maker. It required 720 hours classroom time and 8,000 hours practical experience, finally challenging a national exam to certify competency.
To say framebuilding requires an apprenticeship is laughable. It requires the absolute most basic metalworking skills. There are plenty of frame building courses ranging from 40 hours and up most reputable courses settling in at 80 hours. As mentioned earlier the builder would be in no way as efficient as an experienced builder but the end result would be equivalent. Perhaps you can explain why almost all current custom frame builders are self taught? Why are there hundreds if not thousands of small one person frame builders scattered around the world, even this forum has a lively frame building sub forum. This mystique built around frame building is nothing more than an attempt at differentiating virtually identical products in the marketplace.
I am aware I am a bit of an outlier on this forums regarding this subject and the deification of vintage. I have been exposed to a diverse variety of metal fabrication work my whole life and bicycles are as basic as it gets. That is not to say that many high-end custom bicycles are not well-made and beautifully presented.