Andy Newlands – Strawberry Cyclesport, Portland, Oregon

Andy Newlands has a great workshop in a nice part of Portland, and also is the US representative for the Italian bike fixture & tool manufacturer Marchetti – I had a look around yesterday..

A good sign at Portland International Airport.

Marchetti Frame fixture. There's lots of room to weld or braze around the frame due to the distance from the board that the tubes are held.

The tubes sit 500 mm off the board.

Marchetti tube mitring machine. Or mitering machine if you're American.

Detail of coolant hoses and mitre cutter.

Andy had a lot of praise for this handy stool with integrated tool tray..

This big torch throws out some serious BTU's per hour for BB shells or fork crowns.

This is Andy's design. This is a plastic prototype made by a 3D part printer from a CAD file.

Here's the finished item, cast by Long Shen.

Marchetti fork fixture

Detail of fork fixture.

Marchetti frame alignment table. The BB clamp is operated by air from the compressor.

Andy showed me this compressor, which uses a rotary screw instead of pistons, so is much quieter and preferable for home shop use.

BB clamp detail on alignment table.

This part is used to hold the seat tube still after it's aligned, so that the top tube can then be aligned if necessary without affecting the seat tube.

These extended bars can be used to correct misalignments in the head tube. A dial gauge is set up at the top of the picture to measure the alignment.

Alignment table overview. Dropout alignment tools can be seen bottom right.

Sandblasting booth

A typed response to Andy's 1971 letter to Carlton Cycles, Worksop, Nottinghamshire, UK.

2nd page.

Andy is a very hospitable man; as well as inviting me out to a great dinner party the other night, I was also given a tour around some of the local sights in Portland.  Tomorrow he’s going to drive me to some more workshop tours in Portland, including Chris King.  Check out Andy’s website here: http://www.strawberrybicycle.com/

Andy also founded the only framebuilders’ non profit trade group on the planet; the Oregon Bicycle Constructors Association (OBCA) in 2007:   http://www.oregonframebuilders.org
And here’s a link to the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show, run by the OBCA:  http://www.oregonhandmadebicycleshow.com

Also still to come on my Portland visit:  Vanilla Bicycles / Map Bicycles / Ti Cycles / United Bicycle Institute.

Ok, it’s getting late now.  Good night.

Mike Flanigan / ANT Bikes

Today I drove to Holliston, just outside Boston to visit Mike Flanigan at ANT Bikes .

Mike started building frames at Fat City Cycles in 1983, where he became skilled in Tig welding and painting.  Fat City was sold in 1994, and Flanigan and six others started an employee-owned company, Independent Fabrication (custom-built factory-made bikes).

Mike went his own way in 2001, following his environmental sensibilities to specialize in utility bikes and roadsters with racks.

Mike explained some tig welding basics to me – the filler rod is generally used once, and no double pass needed.  The double pass technique is used with titanium mainly for aesthetic reasons, but also helps to seal the argon gas.

It’s more difficult for the new frame builder to get started with Tig welding than with brazing, but Tig welding is easier to master.  Brazing is the complete opposite as it is easy to start but very difficult to master.

It can cost  $4-5,000 for a good tig welding machine, but a useable machine can be bought for $2,000.

Cheaper tig machines don’t have the same arc stabilization as the more expensive machines.

A 3-phase setup is probably the best.

Mike has recently switched to a low voltage machine to give him greater flexibility in where he can work. 

Tig welded frames can be completed much more quickly than brazed frames.  Machining and tacking is much faster.

Mike adopted his own niche early on in the style of bikes that he makes, and due to his level of experience, he can make a very high quality bike much faster than many builders, although Mike ackowldeges that the skills gap is narrowing with the amount of classes and tools available .

Here are the photo’s I took during my visit:

An ANT bike nears completion.

Mike Flanigan in his shop.

Miller Tig welder

Tube miter fixture

Nice welding

More welding.

Mike showed me these conical seat stay caps - his own design, which make a good contact on the seat tube for a good weld.

Fitted seat stay caps.

A heat sink, with brass stock to make more seen on the bench behind.

Mike's own design frame jig.

Mike is now offering frame building courses which include fixtures in the price.

Ant fork fixture.

An Ant bike is prepared for takeoff.

 Thanks Mike for talking to me after I turned up late due to getting slightly lost in the Holliston backwoods, especially when you had to be somewhere else.

Tomorrow morning I fly to Portland Oregon, city of frame builders.  I’ll be meeting Andy Newlands of Strawberry Cyclesport, Mitch Pryor of Map Bicycles, getting a Chris King factory tour and having a snoop round United Bicycle Institute.  Don’t miss it..

Peter Weigle

Today I drove out to Lyme, Connecticut to meet with one of my favourite frame builders, Peter Weigle.  Peter came to England in the early 1970’s to work at Witcomb Cycles in London, a few months after Richard Sachs arrived there.

Here are some pictures from the workshop visit:

Inside Peter's workshop.

One of Peter's very nice Raleigh conversions - taking a Raleigh Competition with 700c wheels and carefully modifying it to take 650B size wheels.

Nice road frame with chromed lugs.

Lathe with constantly variable speed.

A bench in the workshop.

Another lathe, this one fitted with a Jacobs chuck that has a variety of different sized rubberflex action collets.

Frame jig.

Peter Weigle shows me the first frame he ever made - at Witcomb in London, 1973.

Witcomb memorabilia

The old workshop at Witcomb in England in the early 1970's.

Some files are snapped off to make them more suitable for certain tasks.

Some files with corks for handles. Peter uses some of his larger files with no handles, but files off the edges slightly to make them more comfortable.

A collection of lug mandrels.

Peter told me that this belt sanding machine is one of the most useful tools he has.

A very drilled track end from back in the day.

I asked Peter what it felt like to have played such a big part in the revival and popularization of the randonneur bicycle – he replied that it felt very special, especially as he was becoming slightly disillusioned with making road racing bikes, which he felt were becoming very generic and mainly in the Italian or classic English style, when he started to get hooked on the French style randonneur bikes, borne partly out of his collection of fenders from bikes of this type. This renaissance of interest in the randonneur bikes began in about 2003.  He explained to me how these bikes, as well as being very elegant and having graceful, balanced lines and exquisite racks that sit perfectly in harmony with the rest of the bike, they are extremely practical, as they owe their heritage to a time when the riders of these machines would not own a car, and so they had to be used in all weathers and for carrying small loads on all types of road surface.

Peter described how they are fast enough for him to keep up with friends on high-end road bikes (Peter does come from a racing background..), and they are very stable on descents and over poor roads or loose surfaces.

I put this question to Peter:  Are vision, taste and style as important as the hand skills required in custom frame building?  Peter replied “Without question”.  To Peter, proportion, lines and balance are key factors.  Peter’s customers often enjoy being part of the process of buying and ordering his bikes, sometimes having discussions at weekend meetings.

Peter and I spoke about other aspects of bicycle making, equipment and also about the importance of different types of bike shows.

I made some notes to write up in my report when I return to the UK.

I was really glad that I got to meet Peter as I greatly admire his work.

Geekhouse – Launching a bike company.

Today I met Marty, Greg and Brad at Geekhouse who spoke to me openly about launching and running a modern bike company.

Marty, Greg and Brad in the Geekhouse shop.

Geekhouse aim their bikes at a young, modern urban demographic,  making mainly track, road, cyclo-cross, mountain and touring bikes.

A sense of fun is always present in both their web presence and their bikes, with lots of bright colours.  Geekhouse began in 2002/3, when Marty, who has worked in bike shops since the age of 16, started out by designing dirt jump bikes on napkins, and then enlisted the help of a friendly mechanical engineer.  The bikes were firstly outsourced to a US company, and then to Taiwan.  This meant long development times, bulk orders, transport times and inventory hassles.

Marty liked bikes by Fat City, Merlin and Independent Fabrication, so approached one of “Indy Fab”‘s founders, Mike Flanigan when he wanted someone to teach him how to build frames.  It was important to Marty that his teacher was connected to the lineage of these Boston-based bike builders that he respected.  The trouble was, Mike said no, he didn’t teach frame building.   Undeterred, Marty thought outside of the box and later took a broken frame to Mike to get his foot in the door.  Marty’s bike store experience was sales-only, and so he didn’t have any hands-on skills to offer, but Mike told Marty that he could use his book-keeping skills, so this was what Marty traded for being shown the skills of frame building.

Geekhouse were able to capitalise on the fixed gear scene, taking influences for their aesthetic and colours from the bmx scene.

Marty gave me the following advice and lessons from his own experiences:

– Bond with your target market – it’s important to have a story about how you came to build bikes.

– Choose a name – Marty was a bike geek, really into bikes and bike parts; in his own words, they were a “bunch of geeks in a garage”.

– Talk to everyone, treat everyone the same, regardless of age, experience or knowledge.

– You have to have a logo and a font that you stick to and repeat.

– Your website is your retail store – Geekhouse sell 90% of their bikes by email.

– Blog- communicate stories and make regular updates.  You must demonstrate consistency and that you will be there tomorrow, but also show progression.

– Include any interested people on a mailing list.   Most people are looking for information at least for a while every day.

– The internet allows the smaller frame builders to exist – the recent growth in numbers of builders is all due to the internet.  (Geekhouse are now selling to Indonesia, and are also being counterfeited in the far east).

– Take awesome studio pictures of your bikes.  Include all information on your website.

– Think of other ways to promote your bikes – Geekhouse now have a cyclo-cross team.

– Try to have a unique aspect – whether it be colour, machined parts, carved lugs, curved or super-light tubing.

– Talk to as many people as possible – never stop talking, emailing, giving out cards and custom-building mailing lists for different groups of people based on their interests.

– Find a good website guy if you’re not orientated that way yourself.

– The best marketing is building something great, taking photographs, then sending them to other blogs, etc – go “fishing” and see if you can catch more business.

– Bike shows can be important – Geekhouse put in a lot of effort to their shows and they’re always really successful.

– Ask open-ended questions to people you want to talk to, and always have business cards. After a bike show, the orders tend to come in a few weeks later.

– Be prepared for the worst-case scenario – you will sell less bikes than you think you will, so keep a safety margin.

– Bookkeeping – learn to prioritize outgoings to maximize cash flow.

Here are some pictures from Geekhouse’s open house event:

Marty also kindly gave me directions to Seven Cycles, where I got a full tour and run-through of the workshop from Karl Borne, and then I cycled over to Marty’s other friends at Independent Fabrication where I bagged another factory tour and took lots more pictures.  It was encouraging and inspiring to see these companies thriving and expanding.

The next visit on my trip will be Peter Weigle in Lyme, Connecticut.

3 Tours – Serotta, Seven Cycles and Independent Fabrication

I had a great tour of the Serotta Factory in Saratoga Springs NY yesterday,  even though I got a little lost and arrived late.

The Serotta Bicycle Fit Centre (white building), with the bicycle frame factory behind.

I was very impressed to hear (and see) that they make everything themselves, even having their own carbon fibre tubing production facility at Poway, Calfornia, Serotta Composites.

The only thing they don’t do in-house is anodize the seat-collars.

Here are the pictures from my visit:

Frames from Serotta's past adorn the walls.

Vintage Serotta frame

Modern bikes from the Serotta stable.

Tubing storage

Tube mitring fixture on horizontal mill.

This area is for checking the alignment of a particular frame part.

The automatic BB shell clamp on this alignment table now has a remote safety switch after somebody lost part of a finger..

Tig welding

 With metal frames, rear triangles are tacked first, then the alignment is checked, then welded completely and alignment checked again. 

This mill is fitted with an abrasive facer to finish carbon BB faces squarely.

Automatic seat tube reamer.

Head tube reamer/facer.

Milling machine set up with a sloting saw to cut seat binder slots.

A quality control area.

Some testing is carried out here, with "go/no-go" and other tools.

A frame number stamping/rolling device for titanium and steel.

Frame preparation area - this area is separated from the main workshop to keep out dust and dirt, before frames are painted or carbon frames are bonded.

 Serrotta have a very extensive & high quality painting facility.  There are 5 automotive-stye paint booths:

1. Bonding booth – stays, etc are cured here.

2. Paint mixing – computerized system calculates amounts of paint to minimize wastage.

3. Spray booth with circulatory underfloor ventilation.

4. Spray booth with circulatory underfloor ventilation.

5. Drying booth – sealed from painting booths to prevent dust ingress.

These fame sub-assemblies have been masked and the lugged sockets blasted to aid the bonding of the epoxy.

 

One of the five painting/finishing booths at Serrotta.

This frame is designed to accommodate the Shimano Di2 electronic shifting gubbins.

Paint mixing room - a computer program calculates the amount of paint to mix so that little or none is wasted.

Epoxy bonding booth - the carbon frames are held in a fixture as seen here and the temperature is cranked up to accelerate curing.

This carbon frame is being assembled with epoxy in a fixture.

Serrotta carbon.

All sorts of frame components are stored in this area.

A rear dropout sits atop the material from whence it was hewn (in-house, of course).

 

5-axis cnc machine.

This bottom bracket shell is made..

..from this..

..not by specially trained mice, but with th 5-axis cnc machine.

A carbon head tube with metal reinforcement.

Titanium tubing

Swaged in-house by this machine.

Machined parts are put through "rumblers" filled with abrasive particles to remove machining marks.

Dropouts are machined from blanks made on a lathe.

Lathe

Final finshing, polishing & packaging area.

WORKSHOP TOUR – SEVEN CYCLES, BOSTON

Seven Cycles began in 1997, and make carbon, titanium and steel bike frames.  They hope to make 3,000 bikes this year.

Karl Borne kindly gave me a great tour of the shop.

 

Here are the pictures I took:

 

This bike was made by Seven for a show in Germany.

 

Entering the workshop floor..

Completed sizing charts come through from the customers..

Dropouts and other frame parts are selected here.

Rear dropouts

Titanium tubing is ordered once a year in bulk from Haynes International. The tubes are long..

 

.. so they use this lathe to cut the tubes to short lengths. The tubing can pass right through the chuck from the end...

 

.. and are supported on these scooter wheel rollers during the cutting.

 

Tubing for a build in progress.

The chief bender shows me how to match bend a pair of stays on a hydraulic bender..

a little more..

..There we go.

The angle is checked with blocks and a protractor on a surface plate.

Bending mandrels for different sized tubes and bend radii.

The progression of the bend is monitored by watching the gauge as it contacts the small angle boom.

Watching the gauge.

Around the shop floor..

A tig welded frame

Tig welding in action.

A computer system tracks the progress of each frame in real time, and the customer can be told exactly which stage the build has reached.

CNC machine

Painting and Finishing area..

Seven Cycles decals.

.

A very clean weld.

Frame packing area.

Employees' bike parking.

 WORKSHOP TOUR:   INDEPENDENT FABRICATION.

Marty at Geekhouse told me how to find “Indy Fab” on a commercial estate in Boston.  They were about to move 60 miles north to New Hampshire to new premises when I visited.  Most of the employees will move with the company.

The company was started in 1995 by Mike Flanigan, Jeff Bucholz and Lloyd Graves.

Custom bikes began in about 2000, and the company was then employee-owned.  In 2008 Gary Smith bought the majority of the company.

There have been as many as 20 employees in the past, but now there are about 10.

Indy Fab makes steel, titanium and carbon frames, but also uses a blend of materials on some frames, eg carbon and titanium.  They are well known for hardtail mountain bikes, but now make approximately 50% road bikes and 50% mtbs.

Some cross bikes are also made by the company.

Every bike is custom built over an 8-10 week turnaround period.

Here are the pictures:

Indy Fab's HQ then, but not now.

Inside.

In-house bike photo studio

Frames.

Cleaning tank.

Stuff..

This gas fluxer underneath the bench adds flux to the acetylene line. The flux is absorbed into the flame when brazing and enhances the quality of the weld when brass brazing. A bright green flame indicates the flux is in the flame.

A reel of silver brazing alloy.

Head tubes are reamed and faced on this ancient lathe. Most of the machines here are 60 - 70 years old.

 

More old machinery.

 

An American-made air powered file.

When titanium is welded at Indy Fab they use a "double pass" weld. the 1st pass is a fusion weld to help seal the purging gas, then the 2nd pass is made with filler rod.

 

Tubing storage area. Indy Fab are beginning to combine titanium orders with other companies to reduce the cost of ordering from bulk-only aerospace materials suppliers.

 

Painting/finishing area.

Lugged carbon design.

Final frame finishing.

Ok, that’s it for the Independent Fabrication tour.  Hope you liked it, and I hope the factory move went ok..

A visit to Richard Sachs (Unabridged)

Well, I just had a great chat with Richard Sachs at his workshop in a very quiet part of Warwick, Massachusetts.

If anyone could give me advice it’s Richard, as he’s an accomplished and successful frame builder with decades of experience.

Richard cuts a crown race on one of his cross team forks.

Richard started building frames in the US after returning from England where he apprenticed with Witcomb Cycles in the early 1970’s.  Upon his return to the US, he began making frames for Witcomb USA, and then set up on his own.

During my visit, Richard explained how his unconventional career path began when he didn’t get a bike mechanic job he saw advertised (he only intended to work there for a few months before concentrating on becoming a writer), and then, almost out of spite he wrote to several frame builders in England, partly to prove that he could transcend that role .  Witcomb replied, inviting him to come over to England, and welcomed him into the fold almost as a family member.

Richard remains part of the racing community to this day, which plays an important part in promoting his bikes.  The latest manifestation of this is his cyclo-cross team.  Richard was working on his team bike frames when I visited him.

We spoke about the history of the industry, and how the trade was more viable previously.  Good bikes had to be sourced from a frame builder, especially for racing.  The rise of mountain bikes triggered new production technologies, and when the mountain bike market slowed down, the bigger companies applied these technologies to making road bikes.  Frame builders were dying out by the mid 1980’s.

I spoke to Richard about the realities of working as a frame builder today.  He gave me the following advice:

– Don’t romanticise, think of it as a business, not a craft.

– Don’t sell at too low a price just to get things moving and frames made.

– If possible, don’t start as a frame builder without frame building experience – try to work at a bike factory, where you will gain much more experience, possibly in several areas of construction.  You will likely be given more responsibility over time, and then, after maybe hundreds of frames later, you can take your skills to your own shop.

– Deposits are to secure a place in the frame builder’s queue, and shouldn’t be thought of as income.

-Clearly determine your market – you are competing against the Treks and Cannondales of this world.

-Invest in a workshop first.

– People skills can be more difficult than frame building skills.

I asked Richard how important it is to establish a brand identity – He replied “Good frames come first, but talking online is very important, and extra merchandise has provided more revenue streams”.

When I asked what was the most difficult part in running a frame building business, Richard told me that it was the administration of a high volume of incoming orders, with the accompanying requirement to be accommodating and gracious to everyone, regardless of how much correspondence each person in the queue demands.

I spoke to Richard about his equipment, noting that the shop wasn’t full of machines like some of the people I had visited previously on my trip.  Richard uses no powered machinery – a hangover from his Witcomb days, where there were no machines, and even the drill was hand-powered.  “Manual labour, muscle memory and hand-eye co-ordination can be just as good and quick with experience” he argued,  describing machinery as unnecessary for him.

Richard’s frame jig is made by Bicycle Machinery, and apart from a few other small fixtures in the workshop, it looks almost lonely in the shop, surrounded only by benches,  hand tools and lugs.

Here are some pictures from the shop:

Prototypes for Richard's own lug range.

Richard's workshop. He has been located here for about a year and a half.

One of Richard's benches

New Sachs lugs..

I rounded up my meeting by asking whether Richard thought that frame building has a bright future in the US, and he expressed concern that he thought a saturation point has been reached in the number of frame builders in America, but he was more optimistic about the UK.

Looks like we’d better get our fingers out chaps..

Next stop, a factory tour at Serotta Custom Bicycles, Saratoga Springs, NY.

Up North to Sputnik Tool

I hired a car in Boston and drove about 6 hours north to Sedgewick, Maine, to visit Jeff Buchholz of Sputnik Tool.  Jeff has built his own workshop, and I was really impressed to see that his finely-made fixtures and tools are all made in-house by him alone on a lathe, a Bridgeport milling machine, and only recently, a CNC Millport milling machine.

When I met Drew at Engin Cycles in Philadelphia he had a lot of praise for Jeff’s tools, and Drew knows a thing or two about tools..

Jeff showed me some work in progress, and I took some pictures:

Jeff in the Sputnik workshop

Jeff talked to me about how he used to work at Fat City Cycles and Independent Fabrication, but is mostly self-taught with regard to machining.  He struck out on his own when his previous role became more managerial, and he wanted to work with his hands.

Sputnik ships equipment globally, and I was impressed how Jeff didn’t dress things up in marketing spiel, he just makes purposeful, straightforward quality tooling.

Jeff's new cnc machine.

Here are some fixture parts awaiting machining:

Making stuff that will make stuff.. cool.

A workpiece on the Millport with swarf shield behind.

I really like the fact that Sputnik Tool makes great equipment by one man in his own shop.  Moose sometimes stroll past the window next to the blueberry field.

These tools will save a lot of frame builders time and money.  I half-jokingly suggested that due to the weight of some of the bigger fixtures, maybe Jeff could licence production in Europe, where many of his customers are based.  Jeff replied that the whole point for him was that he enjoys making things himself.

I was sold.

Philadelphia Excursion

Wissahickon bike store front.

http://www.engincycles.com

Engin workshop sign

 Engin Cycle Works is a very well-equipped frame building workshop behind Wissahickon Cyclery, owned and run by Drew Guldalian.  Drew has been running the bike shop for 16 years, and started to build frames 7 years ago. Drew has tried many commercially available jigs and fixtures, but has not been totally satisfied with the accuracy of them, so has begun to make his own. Drew owns several milling machines, lathes and fixtures, and explained how they all have a valid purpose.

The Engin workshop.

The man behind the machines - Drew Guldalian.

Drew has concentrated his time on getting his frame building process right, and then having the best machines and fixtures for the job. One horizontal milling machine is used only for tube mitring, and so has the table bolted in place so that the mitring fixture is always dead-centre around its pivot point. The fixture has interchangeable butt-stops of different sizes, which represent the different tubing sizes. This way, the tube length can be measured very accurately.

Tube mitring fixture.

Drew explained that horizontal milling machines are very useful for mitring tubes, and are very accurate. He showed me a German-made horizontal machine made by Deckel that he said was extremely accurate, and also came with a detachable vertical milling head.

Deckel name plate.

Deckel milling machine.

Vertical milling head for Deckel mill.

Drew showed me his own design fork fixture, which he made himself. It can measure from the brake hole in the crown, or the crown race seat. Everything moved very well and smoothly, with no sloppy fit anywhere.

The Engin fork fixture.

Close up view.

 

Fork jig detail showing brake hole mounting point and v-block steerer clamp.

 

Drew explains the importance of using an edge finder when precision machining. This one is disassembled. If I remember correctly, the conical pointed part is to find the centre point of a hole.

The edge finder in action. A parallel is held in the machine vice next to the workpiece to give an extended edge to take a measurement from.

To find the exact point of the edge, the width of the edge-finder is then halved to find the centre point of the milling spindle (a parallel bar is used in the machine vice next to the workpiece to give a convenient extended edge).

The exact centre line of the workpiece can now be calculated by halving the measured width of the piece, then moving the table by this distance exactly with the graduated handwheel.

In this case, the piece was a stem/steerer binder made from 4130 chro-moly, which had to be mitred to fit on the stem, and slotted along the centreline to allow it to open and close. A hole saw was put into the milling machine to cut the mitre into the now-centred binder. The mitre was then cut,

Centrally milled binder.

..and cleaned up with an end-mill:

Cleaning up the cut with an endmill.

The central binder slot was cut with a slotting saw on a horizontal milling machine; the distance from the edge to the centre noted and transposed from the previous exercise.

Preparing to slot the binder centrally on a horizontal mill.

Taking the cut.

Binder held in position on stem.

 

The stem is held in a stem jig, ready to be welded.

Drew also showed me his unicrown fork fixture, designed to hold the blades very precisely and in phase with each other. Drew only uses straight fork blades with his road and cyclo-cross bikes.

Unicrown fork jig. The fork blades are held at the bottom on cones, before the dropouts are added.

The tops of the blades are clamped down to keep the blades in phase.

Fixture detail.

Diacro tubing benders.

Bender closeup

Bender graduations.

Next, Drew showed me a newly Tig-welded mountain bike fork, with two cross-pieces between the steerer and the straight blades. There are many angles to be considered when mitring and constructing this type of fork, and Drew showed me a very clever fixture he had just developed for mitring the component tubes.

Mountain bike fork detail. Several different angles must be considered with this type of fork.

Here are some more pictures from the Engin Cycles workshop:

Frame in a Sputnik Tool frame jig. I liked the way the angle graduations are moved further outward than with other jigs of this type, thus making them further apart and easier to read and fine-tune.

Carefully bent stays.

Rear view of frame.Frame number stamping press

Frame number stamping press

 

The press in action on a bottom bracket shell. Bearing cups or machined equivalents are inserted to prevent distortion of the shell.

Drew takes his alignment datum from the head-tube, not the bottom bracket shell face, and also incorporates seat tube clamps into the surface table, machined specifically for each tube size to retain the centreline with relation to the head tube.

Surface table.

All dummy axles are marked with a centreline to check the centring of the rear triangle with a surface gauge.

Centre line on dummy axle.

A measuring gauge made by Drew.

Drew defended his stance on owning multiple machine tools by explaining that they were of good quality, and would last longer than the rest of his life.

Painted touring frame.

Complete with matching fenders.

I also met Simon Firth, a British ex-pat that actually used to work for the same courier company as me in London.  Small world.  Simon has built frames for Bilenky for years, but is now working with Drew at Wissahickon for 3 days a week, and working on his own frames and equipment the rest of the time.  I also had the pleasure of seeing his first frame build under his own new marque, Hanford.

The birth of a legend - The first Hanford frame is built up at Via Bicycle, an amazing bike shop in Philadelphia.

A proper bike shop.

Lots of bikes..

Hanford Headbadge

Simon shows me a classic old frame from the depths of Via Bicycle's many treasures.

Ephgrave badge - they were made in Clapton, London E5, where I currently live.

Ephgrave headbadge, showing that it was made in Clapton, E5.

Upstairs at Via Bicycle. Too much to write about here.

 I tagged along with Simon and Joel, who works at Via Bicycle (The Hanford frame was built for him) to a swap meet in Brooklyn, where the bike was going to be shown to the local bike aficionados.

At the bike "swap meet" in Brooklyn, or cycle jumble as we call it in the UK.

The bike attracted a lot of interest. Not surprisingly.

Hanford number 1 from another angle.

I went for a ride to a local eatery/pub with Simon, Joel and some other bike enthusiasts, including the Brooks Saddles rep. Brooks are doing a storming trade in the US, and I saw them everywhere.

Simon showed me the beginnings of a frame jig he was making at Engin. This was the BB post.

The next day, I rode up to North 2nd St to visit Bilenky Cycles, where I spoke to Stephen Bilenky about his company and took some more pictures:

Bilenky Bikes door.

Stephen Bilenky

http://www.bilenky.com/Home.html

 Stephen Bilenky started building bike frames in 1984. He is largely self-taught, but had lots of vocational training at an agricultural college where he was taught shop skills, repairs and fabrication. He also took more vocational post-college courses in welding and brazing.

Stephen did study under Jim Gittins for a time, who at one time built under contract for Condor amongst others.

Stephen said that 85% of the information needed to start out can now be found on the internet.

There were 5 employees at work at the time of my visit.

Bilenky make fillet-brazed, lugged and Tig welded steel frames, and also some titanium frames.

A CAD program is used to design the frames, and the tubing is cut and mitred by machine. The frames are built using fixtures made by Anvil Bikeworks.  Bilenky also undertakes all kinds of frame repairs.

Frame fit is worked out using body measurements, a size cycle or the customer’s current bike.

Bilenky produces between 100 and 150 bikes per year, depending on the type and level of customisation, as the build-time can vary greatly.

 Several years ago, Bilenky decided to focus on tandem frames, and as the market was small, they became well-known in this specialised field. This helped the business to grow.

Pre-internet, Bilenky relied on articles in magazines and word of mouth for marketing. Bilenky’s bicycles were reviewed by Bicycling magazine twice in the 1980’s, and also in the 90’s.

Nowadays, Bilenky relies mainly on internet promotion, but shows are also important.

The local Philadelphia market is not particularly strong, so the main market is national and international. At the time of my visit, two frames were being built for customers in Denmark, and another was being built for someone in Japan.

Stephen explained that the company did not get online until 1998, and before that he would receive letters from people interested in his bikes, and reminisced that the only other form of communication was the telephone. I asked Stephen whether he thought an increase in the number of apprenticeships would benefit the industry, or whether he thought it could potentially increase competition too much. He replied that individual frame builders tend to make their own market, so increasing numbers would most likely benefit the industry as a whole, rather than increase competition.

Here are some pictures from around the workshop:

Bilenky Bikes workshop

Lots of frames.

Masked and primed frames.

Enormous Milwaukee Mill

Painted frames

Stephen discusses paint with an employee.

Tandem frames.

 

Tandem frame in an Anvil frame jig.

SQUAREBUILT BICYCLES, BROOKLYN, NY

Ok,

So not only do I get the chance to visit some great frame builders in the US, but I actually get to STAY at SquareBuilt.  I am a lucky boy.

Finished frames on the wall.

Squarebuilt's basement shop

Lance brazing with brass

Lance Mercado started building bikes back in 2003 after studying at UBI in Oregon.  He now has a very well-equipped workshop in the basement of his apartment on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, and specializes in urban-style custom frames, whether they be single speed, track, road frames or polo bikes.  As I write this, Lance is designing a bike for a very small person, with a 650 front wheel and curved top tube.  Lance really enjoys making any bike that’s a challenge, for instance freestyle bikes, or where the customer gives Lance the task of designing the right frame for a very specific job.

Take a look at this amazing video of Lance and his co-builder Alex making (and powder coating, then building up) a frame in just 9 hours (opens in new tab):

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1995420571629

Waterjet-cut SquareBuilt headbadge.

Made by hand in Brooklyn

Made to measure..

BikeCAD software comes in handy.

BikeCAD can make things easier to visualise.

..rules of the workshop

I watched Lance working on a frame. He decided to use lugs.  Sometimes, when Lance uses lugs, he’ll cut the lug in half with a small cutting wheel, put the two halves on the respective tube, and then brass braze in the middle.   The advantages with this method are that the lug doesn’t have to be manipulated to fit exactly to the angle required, and the points of the lugs can be made to lie against the tubes more easily. It is also easier to see the close fit of the mitre between the two tubes, and to make sure that they are pushed right against each other.

Cutting a lug into 2 parts.

Lug cut in two.

This time, Lance has decided to only use one half of the lug, and have it transitioning smoothly from a lug on one tube to a fillet braze on the other.

Two half-lugs brazed to the head tube .

Taking the temperature of the head tube with an infra-red thermometer. No more burnt hands!

..Then matching it to the water temperature so the flux can soak off without quenching the steel.

Head tube in water

Next, Lance fillet brazes the adjoining tubes to the head tube,

Fillet brazing to the front triangle (it's tacked in a frame jig first).

Then any excess brass is filed back to smooth out the transition.

Filing the fillets with a round file.

The fillets can be cleaned up further with an air-powered Dynafile.

Here are some more shots from around SquareBuilt’s workshop:

Checking alignment with a flat surface and a surface gauge (the heat can cause distortion of the tubing alignment).

Lance built his sandblasting booth himself. A whole frame can fit through the door on the end.

Plug-in track ends in position on the jig to test fit.

The bike starts to take shape.

More pictures from around the workshop:

Alignment surface with bottom bracket clamp and fork steerer clamp.

Fork blade bender

Powder coating booth

Lance prints out mitre templates for the seat stays.

The templates are then wrapped around the stays and ground/filed back to the line.

Stays are then put in the frame on the jig to test the fit.

A big compressor powers the sandblaster and air tools.

Lance is in turn powered by coffee..

Lance showed me this saddle rail clamp that's designed for brazing directly onto the seat tube, so a seat post is not needed. Just make sure you get the height right.

Powder pots in various colours

Tubing storage

A nice silver-brazed fork.

The Bamboo Bike Studio, Red Hook, New York

Lance took me to the Bamboo Bike Studio today, where we met Greg and Fence.

Greg and Fence. They are happy.

They have been making bike frame here from Jersey bamboo, which grows locally in gardens and is seen almost as a weed, although now their bamboo comes from Yucatan.  Fence told me how Yucatan bamboo actually has a lower carbon footprint, despite the transport distance to New York because of the solar treatment of the bamboo from this area.

Bamboo tubes

and more bamboo

Previously, they used high density foam for the bottom bracket area and other areas such as the head tube and seat cluster area, but have now started to use balsa wood.

Balsa wood BB area

Head tube

Their goal is to make a 100% biodegradable bike frame within 5 years.  There are currently people in Brazil working on organic epoxys.

The best species of bamboo to use is apparently “Phyllostauctus Strictus”, native to Asia, otherwise known as “iron bamboo”.

It only takes 3 years to grow a piece of bamboo big enough for frame tubes.

frame in jig

Dropout detail

The Bamboo Studio have made a frame from start to finish in 6 hours.  The epoxy really needs 12 hours to cure though.

The current bamboo supplier can provide enough bamboo tubes for 70 frames per month.

Frames, frames, frames.

It was great to see this kind of sustainable and biodegradable industry going on, and with passionate people behind it.  I’m sure bamboo bikes have a bright future.

Finished bike

The Bamboo Bike studio are now offering a self-build kit, starting at $496.  It includes a flat particle board jig.  What are you waiting for?

My next post will be about SquareBuilt Cycles.