I need to put a disclaimer considering I am a neophyte into the vintage bicycle community and have been taught by someone who values framebuilding close to an art, so there's much of a bias.
However I'm confused, wouldn't you say not all frames are created equal ? I'm sure making a frame out of the same tubing as an absolute fact isn't hard as you said, but utilising the tubes properly, shaping them and picking properties for the frame to have should be a skill acquired over time and couldn't be learnt, or better put mastered, in a couple dozens of hours ?

I also can't help but point out that you used vague terms to argue : what is "one identical bike", "any other bike made of the same materials", "virtually identical products" ? Are you describing a "road" bike with "traditional" geometry and the same "Columbus SL" tubing from the same "era" ? If you do, then yes I think I agree with you, they couldn't be so different surely. But those are 3 different variables that could render a bike differently using the same "material", isn't that a lot of assumptions ?

I'm sorry if I come off as rude or anything, I'm very eager to confront many points of view as for now I've only had one.

First post and your first ignore candidate. Congrats.

All this commentary and especially ones specific to Richard Sachs, should certainly know his 'ATMO'.
bye

I'm not here to make enemies, if I offended you or someone, I'm sorry. English is not my first language so the tone might not have been the right one. For now I'm just confused as to what would make you react this way, honest.

EDIT : Unless you meant AtlasShrugged is the candidate to my first ignore ? Not sure what that is yet :x

this. ^

Same. The meaning of 'Jamoke' is at the top of the list.

Hey, go look up "gugie" in urban dictionary.

Checks out.

I'm a little disappointed urban dictionary doesn't have "unterhausen," but my understanding it that it's not complimentary. But anyway, it's a joke mistranslation of my real name.

When Richard Sachs starts paying my bills, I'll start considering his opinion as valid. Until then, ride on.........

Atlas Shrugged was referring specifically to the skills needed for brazing or welding a steel frame. Those basic skills can be acquired fairly quickly and easily. Design considerations are important for a one-person operation, but the vast majority of steel frames in existence were built by workers who had no hand in designing the frames.

Lugged frames, of course, don't require quite as much skill to build as frames without lugs. Filing and shaping of lugs can make a bike a bit prettier, but, historically, the use of lugs was originally introduced (in about 1897, from what I've read, or about 27 years after the invention of the penny-farthing bicycle) as a cost-cutting measure, to eliminate the need to miter tube ends.

Just to clarify my views, steel frame construction is not a very complicated or difficult skill to acquire for anyone with a decent mechanical aptitude. The same goes for determining frame geometry, which is straightforward, as the safety bicycle has been around since the late 1800s, and the effects of the variables that go into a frame's design are very well known. My critiques are directed at ascribing overly romanticized attributes to a frame due to the builder's talents, especially in C&V-lugged steel frames. This was probably the most homogenous, uninventive period of cycling.

The real skill became monetizing custom or batch frame building through product differentiation with clever marketing and production efficiencies. For example, I do not believe an effectively mass-produced Masi Gran Criterium is in any way superior or substantively different to its hundreds of competitors at the time.

What is your production volume definition of mass production, by day, or week, month or year?

That was an interesting time in regards to marketing a top end bike. Everyone had been using the same Campy parts for a number of years, and it was difficult to really make your product stand out from the rest. Perhaps use a nicer lug, or better looking paint, or eventually start pantographing the parts?

I suppose the best marketing was to have people winning races on your bikes.

Bike tech did eventually start evolving more quickly... Campy SL and SR came out, Shimano started developing some of their ideas, such as Uniglide and cassettes and indexed shifting, Reynold produced the heat treated 753 tubing, etc. Aluminum and titanium frames started to become reliable and well behaved and properly competitive.
hmmm... was that when the "romance" of steel frames began to be marketed in earnest?

Steve in Peoria
(I'm still happy just to have a really good looking paint job)

Yes, the maker movement is kind of a replacement for industrial education, but it's offered in only a few schools, and I'm guessing it's usually an elective, not a required course. I taught a course in bike repair in a kids' summer program in 2010 and 2011. At the time I was living in suburban New Jersey. The middle schools had just removed all shop classes from their curricula. As I taught the kids, I realized that no one had ever taught them how to do anything with their hands. No woodworking, ceramics, cooking, or sewing.

I'm glad for the maker spaces. Five within five miles of you? I wish I knew of one I could use. A few years ago, I looked up my neighborhood in Manhattan, and membership was quite expensive, something like $100/month. Of course, NYC is an unusual place with rents much higher than everywhere else. The bike coop in Brooklyn where I volunteer is in a church business and operates for only three hours a week. It's crammed into a closet and taken out into the community room for that short period. Space is really hard to come by.

god bless you noglider for keeping the co-op running. I met some gentlemen at the last Bike Jumble who said the Times Up co-op was back operating again, at a location in Manhattan.

I respect Richard's talents, and that he has his own perspective on a number of topics.

I also know my own limitations, and I'm not losing any sleep about how I approach my hobby.