The last thing I do before a frame is entered into the RS census book – that step is decorating the seat lug area. By the time I arrive here, every other assembly procedure, task, quality assurance check, and related correspondence with the client has been put to bed. I’m now twenty minutes from done-dom. There are several pins to knock off and burnish down. The entry port for the seat post has to look good. And sharp. And all RS-y and shit. And the last part of the final section of the last and final thing I do is to whale on the seat stay plugs so that they look better than they did for the previous two plus days. There’s the shape and the radii and the curve and the symmetry, and all of it has to look swell from above and from the rear. The side views matter less because it’s not easy to sight one and then quickly sight the other to see if they look alike. Data point: They. Never. Do. I stopped trying, or caring about this when Bush One was in office. Oh heck maybe a lot further back than that. Probably when Marshall Crenshaw was still hot. Thing is, when I get to this area, these details, my head is miles (that’s American for kilometers) away from the work I’m finishing and already two hours or more into whatever I’m planning next. But I do have to eke out some beauty some elegance so that JB has a target to hit when he loads the paint. But to say I sweat matching the rights and lefts would be a lie. I try. Muscle memory drives this bus. I try. But not that hard.
All This By Hand
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