An awkward situation with a frame builder

Highly skilled but low paid industry is dysfunctional shock...

When you actually look at the amount of work + skill + raw material costs vs profit vs very high customer expectations; it's not that surprising. I'd guess if people were willing to pay twice as much for a frame then framebuilders could afford to employ more admin people, get extra childcare, etc, etc. But the way things are, I get the impression it's very hard for framebuilders not to take on more work than any one person could cope with so it's not that surprising stuff often goes wrong.