Tom Palermo interview

learned a lot from talking to Tom Palermo of Palermo bikes for a few minutes today.

painters to check out:
Vicious (nyc)
Franklin (oh)
Keith Anderson


each part of prepping a frame (BB, HT, ST) would be $25-30, or more depending on how much cutting is involved.

according to Tom's recollection, Roberts Oxygen's prices are:
$9/pound for 1/16" brass rod
$20/troy oz. for 56% silver coil

he said a troy oz. of silver outta do roughly 4 sets of lugs, so it sounds like 1 coil outta start me off well.
also, he said to try to run the silver from the front of the HT lugs to the back, that is from the front of the bike to the back.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi there- still reading the blog. This is becoming a good resource page, thanks for keeping it up.
Question: WHat does it mean $25-30 per joint? Were you asking him what it would cost to cut tubes for you?

Ethan Labowitz said...

thanks for tunign in sam.
should have made that a little clearer. i was asking about prepping the frame for components after building, meaning facing and cutting the BB shell and HT to accept a BB and headset, reaming out the ST so it's exactly the right diameter for a seatpost, and threading the steerer to accept a stem. these require special precision tools that he's got and knows how to use and it seems easiest to have a real builder do this stuff for me.
he said the $25-30 quote is average, but it'd be less if it's just removing paint from pre-cut threads, and more if it's removing a lot of metal, like cutting threads into totally threadless tubes. i think my steerer is gonna come to me threadless, but everything else sounds like its pretty well on its way, so i figure i oughtta average $25 per operation.