I'd just like to throw in a few slightly random thoughts into this discussion.

A good experienced framebuilder can build a frame in a day whether they are building from a vice with straight edges and mitreing with a file (like Tom Board did in the UK,) or all jigged and tooled up (like Paul Washington did (and still does?) for the Brian Rourke frames). So 200 frames a year is not unreasonable. And both methods can build excellent frames...

1970s pressed lug De Rosa frames are rare - on Ebay worldwide, not just Ebay.com there have been 16 De Rosas of this age for sale in the last three years... of which 11 were on .com, I may of course have missed the odd one. Compare this with 1970s Colnagos or even Masis... De Rosas were built in really small quantities until the 80s. The introduction of cast lugs and BB shell probably helped to increase production but even then the numbers produced were not large. There was then another increase towards the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s.

Quality does vary with almost all framebuilders - like De Rosa, Tom Board's frames vary from stunning to mediocre - its a very rare framebuilder who will build all stunningly good frames especially with the older pressed lugs that needed more skill. But experience of building a lot, pretty quickly can often contribute to building a better frame. Britain's George Longstaff who built many tandem, trike and tandem trike frames as well as solo bike frames reckoned that experience from building good quantities of frames significantly improved the quality of his frames both in the build and the design... I do really question the notion that somebody who builds very small numbers of frames really ever gets that experience which I would suggest is very important.

Another question which perhaps should be raised is whether a heroic framebuilder on his own will build better frames than a co-operative team effort. Certainly there is a good feeling from having a frame that you know is crafted by one pair of hands but that is quite an emotional and/or romantic response which mostly belongs to collectors such as ourselves. All the pro riders I have talked to or seen interviews with certainly do not think of their frames they ride as anything other than as tools – even Eddy Merckx who was incredibly fickle, it was all about getting a comfortable and efficient position. But perhaps there was just the tiniest part of him that wanted a frame built by one person and just maybe, that was reason for switching from Colnago to De Rosa – or perhaps it was the clash of two large egos that prompted the change!

But getting back to frame-building as a co-operative team effort. The Raleigh SBDU unit at Ilkeston was I suspect much more of a team effort than many with a dynamic head in Gerald O'Donavan who never actually built frames himself... He was an ideas' man and an engineer who could coordinate and drive a team to produce some of the best frames of the late 1970s... I think that it would have been rare for one builder to have built a whole frameset at Ilkeston. And even in smaller builders' shops such as Longstaff in the late 90s George did the brazing and layout drawings, with others doing the tube mitreing, lug preparation and final finishing and checking.

An interesting side note is that the Team mechanic to the 1970s Ti-Raleigh team, Jan LeGrand, was a framebuilder (Presto) and he used to come over to supervise and help in the construction of the Team frames at the Ilkeston works. The oversize seastay cap he introduced on the Team frames was apparently one of the details Raleigh adopted from him for the production frames. This feature was not introduced on Ilkeston frames until the beginning of 1977.

Finally, should we concern ourselves to the nth degree about the quality of the frame construction? A superbly built frame is nice but I suspect is a luxury – its how a frame performs over its designed life that is important. It should not fail – but very few steel frames break... There, I am certain are plenty of poorly mitred frames with overheated tubes and blobby brazed lugs that are still being ridden; they will not ride differently to one that is perfectly built with the same tubing and dimensions. Even frames which are not perfectly aligned may well ride perfectly fine... Peugeot PX10 build quality often looked seriously suspect... The perfectly built frame may give its rider more pleasure ... but that will be in part at least just in the rider's head. The other part will be down to how the frame looks and the pride that it imparts.