[The Toninator]

young what shop?

dope=me not young. lost track of who's posting.

 

[valve bouncer]

IMHO its pretty lame when the engineer of an unnamed company claims that a certain frame doesn t need any prep... yes, it was stated clearly in a thread somewhere on RM

another thomson gouged to hell... :angry:

Spirally patterns are great. It looks cool.

 

[oly]

OK, thanks, that makes sense. Couldn't see effectively stretching a high tensile steel cable.

I recall reading once your not really stretching the cable any, but rather setting in the housings to where they stop moving (for the most part). Ive used the flak jaket derailler cable for years and over time the wire ends slowly creep out of the housing, its amplified when you use the housing for brakes.

All my bikes over the past few years ive built up myself from scratch. Most of the stuff the shop guys mentioned i do so that makes me feel like ive learned to do something correct in life.....

 

[JRB]

I pee down my leg while I install cables. It seems to make them stretch out.

 

[johnbryanpeters]

I pee down my leg while fondling my testicles. It seems to make them stretch out.

TMI

 

[JRB]

TMI

Believe it or not, I made that up.

 

[Pau11y]

Believe it or not, I made that up.

No, I don't.

 

[JRB]

No, I don't.

You're gonna love the roadie I am building tomorrow.

 

[Pau11y]

On Pro-builds pull the BB and grease it. (pro build=$500+)

I've done my shop time and now I only build for me. Each of my builds are over 4 hours long. But once the bike is done, she's dialed. The details get to qusi-anal levels. I measure side to side dist. for mountain bikes bars and shifter/levers, down to 1/32 of an inch. Road bars are even more interesting. Head tube and BB gets faced/chased and seat tube is honed at the LBS. When I get it back, I bevel the seat tube opening and edges so as to not gouge the post. If it's a steel frame, it gets FrameSaver spray'd in. Anti-seized is used on BBs cup threads and then it's wrapped in Teflon tape. I really like this combo and haven't had a creaky BB in forever now. Breather holes are epoxied if frame is steel. Stays are first wrapped w/ inner tube and then w/ StayWrap. I handbuild all my own wheels and they're potentially up to 1.5 hours a wheel (Mavics and DT Swiss rims go together much quicker than Suns). I've been using cartridge bearing hubs lately and haven't had to do many freepack hubs. But when I was doing them, they get adjusted on bike and not off. Only use the 1.1mm cable for rear shifting. Housing have been FlackJacets lately and it gets the ends flattened w/ a Dremel after the cut. Talc the tube (if tubes are used). I've switched to the fiber tape for rim strips, but was using Velox on every wheel. I also used to solder all my cable ends instead of end caps. But my soldering iron broke. I think I'll have to get one of those Cold Fusion soldering irons I've been seeing on late night TV.
I guess if I was doing this for someone, $500.00 would be about right. Either that or she's REALLY cute, or else they're REALLY good buds.

 

[Pau11y]

You're gonna love the roadie I am building tomorrow.

Dude, pictures talk
Put some up when you're done and let me on it

Edit: That Strong Custom took me 6 hours to transfer from the De Rosa and I haven't gotten around to sealing the breather holes yet.

 

[-dustin]

i finally got a shop job.

 

[Changleen]

I've done my shop time and now I only build for me. Each of my builds are over 4 hours long. But once the bike is done, she's dialed. The details get to qusi-anal levels. I measure side to side dist. for mountain bikes bars and shifter/levers, down to 1/32 of an inch. Road bars are even more interesting. Head tube and BB gets faced/chased and seat tube is honed at the LBS. When I get it back, I bevel the seat tube opening and edges so as to not gouge the post. If it's a steel frame, it gets FrameSaver spray'd in. Anti-seized is used on BBs cup threads and then it's wrapped in Teflon tape. I really like this combo and haven't had a creaky BB in forever now. Breather holes are epoxied if frame is steel. Stays are first wrapped w/ inner tube and then w/ StayWrap. I handbuild all my own wheels and they're potentially up to 1.5 hours a wheel (Mavics and DT Swiss rims go together much quicker than Suns). I've been using cartridge bearing hubs lately and haven't had to do many freepack hubs. But when I was doing them, they get adjusted on bike and not off. Only use the 1.1mm cable for rear shifting. Housing have been FlackJacets lately and it gets the ends flattened w/ a Dremel after the cut. Talc the tube (if tubes are used). I've switched to the fiber tape for rim strips, but was using Velox on every wheel. I also used to solder all my cable ends instead of end caps. But my soldering iron broke. I think I'll have to get one of those Cold Fusion soldering irons I've been seeing on late night TV.
I guess if I was doing this for someone, $500.00 would be about right. Either that or she's REALLY cute, or else they're REALLY good buds.

I am slightly more anal than you. Loser. You only talk the tubes? What about the inside of the tyres? I find I get the best results using a coarser talk on the tyres and a finer product on the tubes. Also you should stop soldering the ends of your cables and use a laser cutter. It's not the 19th centuary any more! When you bevel your seat tube, do you do it down to 2000 grit? I bet you don't.

 

[jdcamb]

Also, get into a ritual of how you assemble the bike.
Take it out of the box, put in the seat/post, carefully put the bike into the stand. Then take off packaging, attach the bars, and adjust the shifting until crisp. Put on front wheel making sure it is properly in the dropout, check for true (take the wheels off and true/tension if necessary). Adjust the brakes, Grease and put on pedals and reflectors. Then take the bike out of stand and adjust HS, the bar tilt, and stem alignment. No bike is finished until you take it for a test ride. Shift it through all the gears, pedal it, sudden stop it, listen to it, and correct anything not right.

-stone

Good advice. I also take off the cranks and adjust the BB and after that I set all the der. limits. Don't cut corners and assume something was set from the distributer. Even if the last 10 bikes you did were fine it is always the 1 bike you didn't check that your new boss will notice. Don't be afraid to ask questions either. And play the radio/tunes loud so people don't distract you while you're concentrating on a detail. If you have to walk away from a build make a note of where you left off. If you have to start over and take 2 hours to do a build I will yell at you and call you and idiot and claim you're ****ing me over. Buy a note pad so that you can refer to problems you had with certain bikes. Be organized. Watch your tools. Never leave your apron laying around. Don't leave food in your toolbox. Buy your own tools eventually. If someone borrows a tool and doesn't return it by the time you need it. Call them on it. Make sure you point out mistakes made by others as they also reflect on you. Don't be a bitch. If you're not sure about something, tell the customer that. Never lie to a customer, let your boss do that. If he/she lies to enough customers find another gig.

 

[skinny mike]

glad this thread got bumped back up. i should be getting bumped up to a bike builder at my shop job sometime in the next few weeks and while ill start with kids bikes any advice helps so they dont think im a ****ty mechanic.

 

[jimmydean]

My first real job was building exercise bikes at Billson's Sport Shop until they trusted me to build bmx and kids bikes. I moved up to road bikes and worked the skate shop when they put it in.

I later moved to Cycle Masters across town and road raced for them my 10th and 11th grade years. Not a bad first job by any means, but I could never see doing it for a living because my brain would fall asleep.

 

[-dustin]

i never did have to do a test build. i seem to have skipped the whole "bike builder" stage. which is awesome. pay is awesome. discount is awesome. the other mechs seem cool. my first day is Saturday. i'm more nervous about the computer system than anything else. i'll get over that real quick, though, as i'm scheduled to work 33hrs between next Thursday and Sunday. yea work, yea money, yea...yea.

 

[greenchris]

i never did have to do a test build. i seem to have skipped the whole "bike builder" stage. which is awesome. pay is awesome. discount is awesome. the other mechs seem cool. my first day is Saturday. i'm more nervous about the computer system than anything else. i'll get over that real quick, though, as i'm scheduled to work 33hrs between next Thursday and Sunday. yea work, yea money, yea...yea.

congrats a shop gig would be great

 

[The Toninator]

i never did have to do a test build. i seem to have skipped the whole "bike builder" stage. which is awesome. pay is awesome. discount is awesome. the other mechs seem cool. my first day is Saturday. i'm more nervous about the computer system than anything else. i'll get over that real quick, though, as i'm scheduled to work 33hrs between next Thursday and Sunday. yea work, yea money, yea...yea.

Hey congratulations!

So you got a college degree to work in a bike shop?

Where you working?

 

[DRB]

i never did have to do a test build. i seem to have skipped the whole "bike builder" stage. which is awesome. pay is awesome. discount is awesome. the other mechs seem cool. my first day is Saturday. i'm more nervous about the computer system than anything else. i'll get over that real quick, though, as i'm scheduled to work 33hrs between next Thursday and Sunday. yea work, yea money, yea...yea.

1. Wear pants.

2. Edward 40 hands at work MAY cause some problems.

 

[Westy]

1. Wear pants.

2. Edward 40 hands at work MAY cause some problems.

I can say from personal experience that Edward 40 pants is also a bad idea at work.