Major elbow grease

I spent many hours on this frame and stem today......filing bronze fillets. I didn't used to like this job but it has been many years since I have done one like this so it was an interesting departure from my regimen. This stem is made with some new macined parts from Paragon machine works. The stuff is a little heavy and not cheap but these pieces represent a huge leap forward in quality of anything I have built stems with in the previous 26 year......that's as long as I have been building them !
Any frame builder will tell you that this area of the frame is the most labor intensive cleanup spot. I think I devoted about two hours to it. I think I did a better job than the last time-when was that ? Hmmm.........2004 ? I honestly don't remember !
Unfortunately the camera flash kicks up the glare and reflections. At the end of the day it was the best I could do with the fading light and not a heck of energy left. If I had finished earlier I could have photographed the frame outdoors.
At least this side view of the headtube came out pretty nice. There are many hidden touches in this frame that are there to give the longest possible life to this old style unique 29er. That's right......it may look like a frame from 1985 but it is a much more modern bike functionally. Frames like this are something I seldom build and are not inexpensive. I do wind up working about four times as long on a frame like this but when it is being enjoyed by the customer , it will all be worth it.