I believe I have an answer to that question, but I'm not certain I can
explain everything that it entails. To begin with, good finishing work on
lugs actually starts early in the framebuilding process as good
preperation of the lugs prior to assembly of the frame. Since you haven't
asked what is "excellent or exceptional" finishing work on lugs I'll spare
you my opinions on that. Also, I suppose who is defining "good" finishing
work will make a difference. I can't tell you how many hundreds of time in
my life I've heard people say something like "wow, the lugwork on that
bike is beautiful" while looking at a completly out of the box set of
Nervex pro lugs on something like a Peugeot, Raleigh, or Paramount. There
isn't a single stroke of good finishing or prep work on those lugs
whatsoever. I never ceases to astonish me as to what people can and can't
see when looking at a bike.

I would call "good finishing work" a bike that has at least a sharp and
square lug edge, without any factory or other imperfections in the profile
of the lug, and a clean braze job. Running over the lugs after brazing
with emory cloth will give the lug a better appearance that just leaving
them alone, like you will see on any IC lugged factory bike from the mid
70's to present. Most modern framebuilders and factories are right in
there between OK and good depending on wheather they have taken an extra 5
or 10 minutes to run emory cloth over the castings or not. Almost
everything you will ever see comming from high end factories or custom
builders worldwide qualifies as good by that deffinition.

If you actually want to know what above adverage to excellent and
exceptional lugwork and finishing is then let me know and I'll explain my
deffinition of that as well. Only a small fraction of a percent of frames
ever built, and especially these days, exhibit the characteristics of
exceptional design and finish. Talk is cheap and many lay claim to such;
but personally I believe the numbers are so small as to be staggering.
Most have either given up or never wanted to or knew how. Learning to
really recognize the qualities that define exceptional frame finishing
probably would require one to have a LARGE selection of frames in front of
you at once of various degrees of finish, and someone to actually knows a
lot about it to point out and guide you to a deeper understanding and
appreciation of the craft.

Hope that does a little bit to answer your question.

Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA