[oldguy00]

Originally Posted by echelon_john

I think there’s middle ground, but the tubeset and paint are only part of the picture. Welding equipment maintenance & supplies, tooling, electricity, insurance, internet, shop supplies, employment-related expenses (and contracting since I believe they contract out a lot of work) and I’m sure 20 other things I’m not thinking of all contribute to the true cost of a frame. Even with pretty efficient systems, tooling, etc designing, cutting tubes, building, painting, finishing & shipping a frame is going to take 15-20 hours (and maybe more) so once you build margin onto that for a sustainable business it’s understandable why $5-$6k isn’t out of line for a US-produced frame.

That said, big respect to anybody who can make a living on $3000 frames these days. It’s possible, there are folks doing it, but there’s not that much cushion there imo.

You may very well be right.......but I remember a while back when steel builders were getting up into the 5k+ range, you could still get a custom steel frameset from Marinoni in Montreal for 1500 Cad. Now not saying Marinoni's paint job was the same as Joe Bell, but otherwise they were a business in a building, custom building frames with the same columbus tubesets....