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Tbh..tig is the quickest and lowest cost way to make a frame. And excellent welds can be seen on even cheap bikes from the far east, by workers that churn them out by the hundreds.
Nothing wrong with a tig welded frame but it's not special handmade touch/details... without the paint it would be indistinguishable from another similar less desirable brands.
wildwest-
Hey, just my opinion based on the question you asked...
Ever seen a badly made TIG frame by one of these new frame builders with no experience? Compare that to something like a Firefly or Seven or IF. There’s no contest. A well built TIG frame is not the same as a poorly built TIG frame. Why bother with ‘hand made touches’ (if you’re referring to fillet brazing) when they can’t be seen under paint? Heck, there are some cowboy builders who don’t even file their fillets nowadays and just paint straight over them!
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Wrong on just about every point. Well done!
JB
jj72
@wildwest They're rarely seen outside of the U.S. which immediately makes them that bit more special. Nothing about the tubing makes it inherently better than 853/Spirit. It was True Temper's highest end tubing.
I don't think it's fair to call it just a normal TIG frame. Waterford have been making bikes for almost thirty years, hence, the welds are perfect. In my own personal experience, I have two handbuilt TIG'd frames from very different companies and there's no contest in how well one of them is finished versus the other, despite both using high end tubes. One looks relatively agricultural and hand made and the other looks like it was made by a weld perfecting robot. I can barely even see the welds.