downsize the fantasy atmo -

[e-RICHIE]

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Downsize The Fantasy | RICHARD SACHS CYCLES

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ATMO Bis | RICHARD SACHS CYCLES



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[sam]

Good write up Richard,
it makes me wonder what is it about certain people that make them want to do things like be a framebuilder. I guess we all have the same reasons, we love bikes, like to make things, etc. but what is that internal drive in our brain that is different from the other people out there who also love bikes, but have no desire to build frames.

My high school days and early college days I bought stereo drivers from different brands built enclosues for both home and car use. I did it in part because I enjoyed doing it and in part because I could build a better speaker cheaper then what was available on the market, at least in the market that was in my price range.

I also have been fly fishing since a little kid, my dad builds his own rods for his own use. So I decided to build my last two rods, plus one for a friend. Fun to do once in a while but I will never be a so called rod builder. I also tie my own flies, thought it would be fun, also thought I could save a little money on flies, after a while you have over a grand tied up in feathers and it aint so cheap any more, but in the last 10 years of doing it I have tied 75% of all the flies I use, I just like it.

Fast forward to now, for quite some time I have thought about framebuilding. I would say the idea popped in my head @ 1998, about 4 or 5 years ago is when I kinda said at some point im gonna do it, and 2 years ago is when I started to take action. yes I have a masterplan as far as how I want it to go and what I want to do, but am also realistic and know that it may never come to fruit. If it does not come to fruit I will be ok with that, because it wont be for lack of trying, but you have to be able to develop the skills, be a business, and have the market desire your product and if one of these 3 things does not work out well it can end the plan.

so what is it about me and others that make us want to do this stuff, are we dreamers who live in fantasy land, or are we the kids that never grow up, are we a visionary destined for greatness. I would think that most framebuilders and those who want to be one, mostly come from the same mental typing.

[Kumo Cycles]

Deja Vu!

[e-RICHIE]

Deja Vu!

deja vu with some heavy editing atmo.

[EricKeller]

I built my first 4 frames in my bedroom in my mother's house. I feel like I spent too much time building a jig, but nowadays I see people building a low-production factory before they braze their first frame. And more than one person has just gone to the bank to get a second mortgage and sent most of it to Anvil. Only to find that they really don't want to build frames. Using some kind of machine to cut miters didn't really occur to me until I had built quite a few frames, and even then I gave up on it pretty quickly.

I think all this money would be better spent buying tubes. Granted, there still would be a $1000 investment before the first frame is built, but a lot less time and a lot more practice could be had.

[Jonathan]

Richard had a pretty big influence on me. When I started putting the blocks together to build that first frame I was a MSG board regular and active schemer wrt to tube mitering. I think most new guys or gals think there is some shortcut around filing a nice profile. After a few attempts it became clear that picking up the file IS the shortcut for doing the frames most new guys do.

I understand fully that production guys, tig welders and multishape tubers all benefit from a mechanical cut, but as Richard says on the left end of things the important stuff is learning the basics.

[Eric Estlund]

I'm not sure there is a wrong path for the hobby builder- someone going into building frames for fun. If they enjoy machine tools and bikes, it may make sense to combine them as a leisure activity. For a recreational builder who isn't selling there is (or should) not be an expectation of recouping the money spent on tools/ toys. Spending a few thousand on machine tools for fun is very different then tooling up with machines you might not need/ know how to use with limited start up capitol for a professional endeavor.

I had a similar path to Richard- I started building bikes in someone else's shop, and then eventually transitioned into doing it as a solo affair. In the intervening time between Richard's first day and my first day the face of the frame shop changed- I was hard pressed to find a file, but there were loads of mills and heavier tools. I assume this early impression flavors both our outlooks. When I was building as a hobby at home I was going at it exclusively with hand tools. My decision to buy a mitering set up was not based on speed or a need to compete with time- it was in an effort to reduce the stress on my back, neck and shoulders (and it worked). When shop visitors come by I show them the mill and then turn them around to see the vise- that's where the bulk of my work still happens, and it's not in the relatively short process that is mitering.

I whole heartily agree that people interested in building bikes for fun shouldn't feel the need to buy machine shops and try to figure out how to use them. That said, if someone can enjoy two hobbies at once I think that is fine. My concern is for people selling the farm to create castles on cast iron only to loose it all on the business end. As a business, if it doesn't make the bikes better or me hurt less, I don't buy it.

[e-RICHIE]

eric thanks for the reply, and i am in agreement with you. my text was written from a lists of thoughts that were mined from several conversations i had with folks online. at the core, the message is that tools don't make the frame (insert snark or levity - i know, i am asking for it...), though many think they are needed to begin. the tools are expensive, heavy, take up space, and for the one-man, one-frame business model, may not ever pay for themselves. in the case of your mentioning stress, well i can see that POV. when i went from doing-it-all-by-hand to having a mill and lathe, i found that the shop pictures looked cooler and more modern, but the time involved with set ups and running far exceeded what i was used to when mitering and slotting the way i had been doing it for the previous ten years. all the tool surfaces became holders for magazines, coffee cups, and winter jackets as i systematically jettisoned all of it by the late 90s. i do get the tool thing. if i had the money and the space, i might have even kept much of it despite the fact that it was a less efficient path for me. i get the combining hobbies angle, too. good point. again, i came into the conversation based on thoughts aimed at folks who believed (or thought) that the machinery was needed, or some rite of passage into the trade - or even made the frames better by dint of possessing them. and this, from newer folks too. and for the record, all those 70s era books and articles about making a frame with bungee cords, melamine surfaces, c-clamps, and a bernzOmatic never resonated with me either atmo.

[Dave Anderson]

.....when i went from doing-it-all-by-hand to having a mill and lathe, i found that the shop pictures looked cooler and more modern, but the time involved with set ups and running far exceeded what i was used to when mitering and slotting the way i had been doing it for the previous ten years. all the tool surfaces became holders for magazines, coffee cups, and winter jackets as i systematically jettisoned all of it by the late 90s..

I guess I don't really have much of an opinion about how guys get to the point of building their first frame or frames, from an equipment perspective, but what Richard says here really tracks with my experience. I am pretty practical about tooling (some might say cheap) and have always gone about things the cheapest way that I could...as long as it was still effective. However, after well over a decade of doing pretty much everything by hand, back in the fall of 2008 I decided I would "tool up" and bought a mill and mitering fixtures and all kinds of stuff that I thought would make it all easier or more efficient. However, the end result was that I ended up with a whole lot less money in the bank, less space in my shop, and some expensive coat racks. I can maybe see some merit to having a multiple machine set up with each dedicated to one specific task, especially in a production environment where your mitering 50 seat stays for a run of bikes or something, but for me, where every bike is different, I found that I can, for example, miter a set of main tubes my old way a lot faster than it took just to set the machine up for each angle, diameter, cutter size and etc, let alone standing around waiting for the power feed to run through. Long story short....I got rid of it all. I am poorer for it, dollars wise, but it re-enforced what I probably already knew and what Richard says here.

I will say, though, that my shop was a whole lot more impressive looking to an outsider. When customers visit now I sometimes get the impression that they're a little disappointed, or expected something more. But in the end, its the bike that matters.

I wonder though, were this idea about needing a lot of tooling comes from, beyond the hobbyists with a tool fetish and a bike fetish? Is it because UBI, or whomever, teaches methods based on using tooling and so that's all they know?, or is it because that's what they see on Flickr pages? Is anyone teaching basic methods these days?

Dave

[Eric Estlund]

Every step of my UBI frame was done by hand.*

*I don't know how they do it now, but when I was there Ron was defiantly NOT preaching a tool heavy procedure. He was all about showing one possible way, and encouraged students interested to pursue their own practice.

[Dave Anderson]

Every step of my UBI frame was done by hand.*

*I don't know how they do it now, but when I was there Ron was defiantly NOT preaching a tool heavy procedure. He was all about showing one possible way, and encouraged students interested to pursue their own practice.

Cool. Do they have more than one class? I've seen a lot of photos of mills and fixtures and etc. For example: seat stay miter | Flickr - Photo Sharing! .

However, my comment was not meant as a criticism at all, or in any way. I am just wondering where this tooling up idea comes from and if other ways are being taught anywhere. UBI does teach a simple method then? That's great.

[e-RICHIE]

I wonder though, were this idea about needing a lot of tooling comes from, beyond the hobbyists with a tool fetish and a bike fetish?

speaking from experience, the planted seed for me was the eddy merckx cycles catalog that was produced in the late 1970s. to my recollection that publication depicted framebuilding in what appeared to be a machine shop environment. with my rearing coming from southeast london where the most high tech piece of equipment was an electric drill, i was intimidated by the sheer volume of task specific tooling and work stations that were shown to exist on the shop floor. subsequent trips to italy in 1979, 1981, and 1985 to visit every framebuilding atelier north of rome convinced me that there was a real disconnect between what these men were doing and the notion i had of the trade leading up to this time. a full afternoon spent at derosa in 1979 was a turning point. i had a this order form equals one frame for one person mentality where these folks were making a run of 60 same size/same design frames that month. the bottom line is that from the merckx catalog through the visits at cusano milanino and to all points in between, machinery and tooling was everywhere. when i started to accumulate my own stash of Bike Machinery and M+L fixtures, my shop started to look just like those i visited. but the difference was that making it all work for me was a riddle that took a long time to solve. but when i realized the answer, it was beyond simple; these cats make production frames, mostly for export. they did not come into work each day with some creative bent or independent streak that drove them to live some sort of unconventional life style. for a white, teenage, american boy from bayonne, framebuilding was an adventure i was in the middle of living. for these men of milan, it was the business they were born into and a way to make a living.

the cliff's notes include that the tools and fixtures are essential in a production arena. in a shop similar to what we do, not so much atmo.

[Dave Anderson]

Those were cool catalogs....

[e-RICHIE]

Those were cool catalogs....

yes - i remember getting them and immediately thinking - heck, immediately believing - that you (me) don't have a fucking chance. it's over. i'm glad i succumbed to it all, lived that episode, and safely got to where i am as a result of no longer fantasizing about something i expected was the opposite of how it really was. after my heavy spending era came and went, i concluded that there was no synergy with what the makers of that generation (and those before it) were doing and what i was doing or wanted to do atmo. i summed it up in one tidy thought (danger, pith coming...): they are not making frames, they are making money. ps with even more hindsight and self-examination i also concluded that there is no right or wrong way.

[Dave Anderson]

. ps with even more hindsight and self-examination i also concluded that there is no right or wrong way.

where's the "like" button on this thing?

[Craig Ryan]

Right
here.

[Eric Estlund]

Indeed.

As an ex US parallel to the guy in that first Merckx catalog photo- it's a long way from what what I did then to what I do now.

[Eric Estlund]

PS- Hobby (or professional single operator) guys trying to equip a small shop with M&L production equipment (at today exchange rate) better have deep pockets. That stuff is pretty amazing, but how many of us need multi-operator fork brazing rotisseries? Production floor positionable stations are a whole different world than a clapped out Bridgeport!

[vulture]

Because I worked at a bike shop when I built my first frames, I did not have much tooling to build them, I was happy to build them with files a level and plumb bob. When I moved to Bend I got a job in a shop that did all kinds of fab work to make fuel tanks for race cars and airplanes. We could weld, machine, plastic weld, Radio frequency weld, vulcanize, roto mold,...rubber, most metals, 4 different kinds of plastics. One of my jobs there was to make fixtures and other tooling, that passed directly to building fixtures for making bike frames and usually the mill and lathe were the backbone machines for those tools. Make tools practice welding build bikes. Just like my interest in bikes has led to people giving me bike stuff randomly, a lot of my machine tools have "fallen" into my lap, they just sort of come around when they do and I take them in. Some money here some trades there. Now I have a shop full of tools to make bikes The vice and files are still the focal point with their big electric friends just hanging around. It seems we are influenced by our jobs, our path to the path. If one doesn't have a job that has anything to do with building things out of metal, I guess the WWW gets them started and what they see that appeals to them is the route they take.

[suspectdevice]

Data point-
I had no idea that anyone used files and shit to make frames(pretty much ever, in the history of mankind) or that anyone brazed anything except cable stops(except we didn't because it takes too long) or that anyone made lugged bikes into the mid-nineties after tig-welded steel became common as anything except as an uber-expensive re-enactment dealio until the NAHBS media barrage started a few years ago.

I spent plenty of time in a bike factory too. Our version of files and a hacksaw for a "quick" proto was a bandsaw and bench grinder. Same thing as using hand tools, except with sparks and a hell of a lot louder.