Well, TBH, the whole thing was just pretty much half-...'d, with the exception of the bars. The fork was built pretty good, but the decals on the fork and frame were all jacked-up and misapplied, with generous amounts of blasting media stuck to the sticky side, so they were mostly unsalvageable. The seatpost wouldn't fit the frame; it's a bit too fat to fit any frame with a 7/8"ID seat-tube. But that was only half of my problems with that, b/c Johnny couldn't be bothered to ream the seat-tube , and there was plenty of blockage in there from some weld penetration, so I had to do that myself. Also, the seat-tube at the collar was oversized by a few mm, so I had to force the seatpost collar on there and remove some powder, etc. Drop outs were spaced at like 118mm and weren't straight.
When I brought the more serious issues to Brent's attention, he basically told me to kick rocks.
The welds themselves are super-smooth, stack-of-dimes beads. Johnny has been making frames, off'n'on, for decades. It's clear that he has a lot of skill, but I guess he couldn't be bothered to do it right. Others have had similar issues, and apparently he has been busted for selling knock-offs in the past, too. Yeah, the frame looks hot, and once I got around the hang-ups, it rides pretty good, too. But, when you pay hundreds of dollars for a frameset, you shouldn't have to respace your hubs, straighten the rear end, ream the seat-tube, etc. And, when you drop like $35 on a seatpost, it should be built to spec, and it shouldn't be rusty on the inside.
It's not really a big deal; it's just a bike frame, and it was stuff I could handle myself, but I tried to support an American builder, paid a pretty penny for it, and got burned. Imagine if I were some kid who wouldn't be able to address these problems. That'd be borderline tragic. (Truth is, though, I think TT customers tend to be middle-aged guys.) I got a Genuine Article 1 from Atomic Paul, and everything was made exactly to spec. Restored my faith in American-made stuff, for sure.
But, yeah, even if it all worked out in the end, I can't help but feel like JTT made a substandard product, so I can't get too worked up about posting pics of it online.
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love looptails!!
