How many framebuilders would do production work?

[steve garro]

By production I mean producing frames in batches, either under their own name, or under a brand name.

I remember in the 1990s KONA offered a frame called the Hot. It was basically a KONA Explosif, but made by a custom builder. I believe Tom Teesdale was the main producer. Hundreds of these were made.

I ended up with all those tubes!

An entire Monte Carlo full, maybe 30 cases, all Tange MTB and Ultrastrong ribbed tubing, traded $300 & a frame for the lot.

- Garro.

[Rody]

It made me wonder if framebuilders were exploring other business models outside of the "one frame for one client" approach.

Here's an inside look from my experience Groovy Cycleworks 330-988-0537: The business of small batch building

[Will Neide]

It's about maximum return for minimum work.

Exactly.

"Work smarter, not harder."

[trentschler]

Let's face it, production work can be pretty boring, especially if you have your sights set on running your own show and building beautiful bespoke bicycles. I mentioned in another thread that I worked as a welder for some years and for most of that time I was bored to tears. The work on the shop floor was repetitive in the extreme. Yes, I got good at welding, because that's what I did, all day, every day. I can't see choosing to serve this kind of time in order to build solid frames at some later date. And how do you learn about design, after you get the metalworking skills? And how to advance in the company or learn how to run your own? I can only think of one or two places, such as Bike Friday, where those in the shop might have regular and close relationships with the engineers and managers. At a certain point, I realized I had taken welding about as far as I could so I went to college to learn more skills.

Here's a note I saved from the old frame builders list. I snipped some of outdated and irrelevant paragraphs. It's a clear-eyed take on working in a custom, but production, bike factory. Imagine what the old Schwinn factory in Chicago was like. Talk about production - yikes!

Tony Rentschler
+++++++++++++++++++++

Archive-URL: http://search.bikelist.org/getmsg.as...10004.0125.eml
From: JamJeff30@aol.com
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 00:33:58 EDT
Subject: [Frame] Looking for a few good builders @ Waterford

Hello

I fell upon the site last week and have been fascinated by the # of people
involved in this list. My inability to follow the past two days humor
regarding the Steel vs. Ti relegates me to voyeurism for the forseeable
future. Are there really people out there that think that Ti is stiffer than
Steel given a constant diameter and wall?

I checked with Josh to see if it would be all right for me to post a Job
listing and he said that it would be fine.

For those of you that don't know, Waterford Precision Cycles was born when
Richard Schwinn (Last name says it all) Marc Muller (Schwinn's Head of
Engineering) and George Garner (a very succesful Chicago Schwinn Dealer who
has subsequently left the partnership) bought the Paramount facility and
equipment from the Schwinn Bankruptcy in 1993. Since our inception we have
gone through many changes.

In the past seven years we have:
1. Developed a reputation for very high quality silver brazed lugged frames.
(Waterford)
2. Developed a reputation as the manufacturer for Standard Industries. (A
very high end 20" BMX and Freestyle line for those of you who don't know)
3. Introduced a line that allowed us to combine our two core competencies of
Brazing and Tig welding. (Gunnar)
4. Become a premier OE manufacturer of frames, forks, and stems for a number
of companies that I can't list.
5. Grown our physical plant from 8,000 to 26,000 square feet
6. Grown our employee base from 6 to 30 very happy people in a local job
market with an unemployment rate of under 2%.
7. Kept our sanity and our sense of humor in a very, very competitive market
that has seen most of the big boys running to Taiwan with their tail between
their legs.

For those of you who might be looking to Re-Locate to beautiful Waterford,
Wisconsin here is what we are looking for and what we have to offer.

WHAT WE NEED
We are looking for an experienced person who would be interested in being a
part of our growth. We are more than willing to train the right people but
would prefer some one who knows what end of the torch not to put in their
mouth and who can lay a decent tig bead. Brazing or welding purists need not
apply as we will show you that there can be a synergistic relationship
between the technologies. Of course you must be willing to re-locate (we are
pretty sure that if you are within a 100 mile radius we would have heard of
you by now) and must be looking make building bicycles a career.

WHAT WE DON'T NEED
Please don't apply if you are a successful stock broker on a Vision Quest
(life crisis) to build bicycles. You will be sorely disappointed in the
wages and we will be sorely disappointed when you leave just as we are
beginning to re-coup our investment in training you. Also please don't apply
if you picture frame building as a group of English gentlemen (quite a few of
our best people are female) in white smocks (mostly T-shirts & jeans), horn
rimmed glasses (we have great health insurance and, with the advent of
corrective surgery, non-prescription safety glasses are the norm), who
discuss comparative philosphy (current events, some politics, fishing,
hunting, music, and how we can build bikes better) by the babbling brook (we
are within 1/4 mile of a large river) behind an ivy covered brick building (both
of our factories are steel framed). Building bikes at Waterford is often
dirty, sometimes frustrating, but almost always very rewarding work.

What You Get in Return
1. You get in on the ground floor of a company that has been, and continues
to be succesful, at building bikes in the U.S.A.!
2. You get to learn to build bikes from some of the finest builders in the
country.
3. You get a very open, no nonsense, work environment where people generally
work together toward a common goal.
4. Wages are between $10-14 Per hour depending on inbound experience. We
have consistently raised wages at levels 3 times the rate of inflation. At
Waterford people are paid based on their contribution to the organization
and, while seniority matters somewhat, performance is the major determinate
of compensation.
5. Full health insurance paid by Waterford.
6. 401K plan.
7. Extremely Flexible hours, (The factory is open from 5:30 AM to 4:00 PM.,
you get in at least 40 hours per week within those constraints and everyone
is happy.)
8. Paid vacation and all the normal holidays.
9. A place where "Potential for Growth" is more than just a snazzy saying.

By the way my name is Jeff James, I am the Plant Manager at Waterford. I am
the partner that no one has heard of and I prefer it that way.

Just a note to the other framebuilders who are reading this. If you have any
questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions about Waterford or the other
products that we build I sure would appreciate your feedback. Thank you for
the time that it took you to read this rather lengthy document.

Jeff

[incepi]

how did dead links make you wonder about that?

I assumed that dead links meant people were no longer actively building as professionals. I wondered if the market was too limited for custom builders who are not established and recognized. Or if perhaps they were just not building efficiently. Or both.

If this challenge is faced by others in the business, would they consider the efficiencies of a production model(while continuing to do custom work), or would they rather not continue if they can't do bespoke frames only?

[incepi]

I ended up with all those tubes!

An entire Monte Carlo full, maybe 30 cases, all Tange MTB and Ultrastrong ribbed tubing, traded $300 & a frame for the lot.

- Garro.

Do you still have them?

[e-RICHIE]

I assumed that dead links meant people were no longer actively building as professionals. I wondered if the market was too limited for custom builders who are not established and recognized. Or if perhaps they were just not building efficiently. Or both.

If this challenge is faced by others in the business, would they consider the efficiencies of a production model(while continuing to do custom work), or would they rather not continue if they can't do bespoke frames only?

Poeple fail because they don't know how to build frames well and efficiently enough to make a market. It's a training issue. These people didn't have enough experience, and then entered a trade they were ill equipped to be in. By extension, it wouldn't matter if they made batch built 56cm frames all week, or filled orders for bespoke. They were weak in the elementary skills necessary to stand at a bench and also print a rate card.

[Will Neide]

would they consider the efficiencies of a production model(while continuing to do custom work),

The whole model, production or bespoke, needs to be efficient to make this a viable career option. Even then, success, however one choose to define it, is not guaranteed. You can do production and not be efficient, but you won't last long. Or the whole project needs to be subsidized by other financial revenues, which then makes the business more a hobby then revenue generating venture.

[Curt Goodrich]

For some reason I don't understand what this thread is about. How about this as a question- How many framebuilders have done production and would do it again? If the situation was correct, I would.

[cicli polito]

With a $500k angel investment, I certainly would. $100k goes straight to the bright, young, and studied process/automation engineer to get their career going, $100k goes straight to the old master toolmaker for their last big project and retirement/kids fund, $200k toward a combination of used CNC, robots and hydro equipment, $50k for interactive design and marketing firm, $50k for downpayment of real estate purchase. Press the green button, light a nat sherman.

i do some small batch frame production and prototyping with a few friends of mine. It is as much, if not more, labor intensive than building one frame, one customer. It is my opinion that until your pushing 1000+ frames out the door annually, there is not too much of a difference between "small batch" and "custom." They are the same thing, merely lots and lots and lots of work.

[ron l edmiston]

Poeple fail because they don't know how to build frames well and efficiently enough to make a market. It's a training issue. These people didn't have enough experience, and then entered a trade they were ill equipped to be in. By extension, it wouldn't matter if they made batch built 56cm frames all week, or filled orders for bespoke. They were weak in the elementary skills necessary to stand at a bench and also print a rate card. RS

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

richie..,

this is life's vocation challenge/struggle..
i am weak in my elementary verbal/grammar skills relative to my easy route / lazy days
in grammar school with no direction.. now i pay the penalty.., but doing my best to undue
my ill equipped & lack of experience with the proper tools..

it's never to late for a proper lengthy smile if i can delete the quick frown..

ronnie

[Albie]

Five people could produce 200 frames in one month? That's 40 per person per month. 10 in one week per person. Assuming a five day week, that's two frames per day.

Is that a sustainable pace, or is it too much over a long period of time?

We'd average something closer to 4 to 6 a day depending on the rush.

The pace at times was tough, but when your profit margins are razor thin (go look at the prices of BMX frames) you have no choice.

[Chauncey Matthews]

Here's an inside look from my experience Groovy Cycleworks 330-988-0537: The business of small batch building

Great info, thanks for sharing.

[Chauncey Matthews]

Do you still have them?

Some scavenging bastard got the last of it years ago.

[andrew]

Here's an inside look from my experience Groovy Cycleworks 330-988-0537: The business of small batch building

"Fiddlefucking"

Thank you Rody. I always learn something new from your posts and this is a word that I can use EVERY DAY in the shop.

Andrew

[anon.]

Hi, I'll just add a quick note to this.

The lessons learned from trying to do batch work as an individual are totally invaluable - you really learn what your strengths are, what part(s) of the design and fabrication processes you enjoy, and it provides a really nice reminder that what you're doing is not rarefied, froufrou, high end artisanal craft - it's a job that requires some patience and attention to detail, but in the end most of it is repetitive work that's hard on your aging, broken body.

A few years ago it became pretty obvious to me that if I wanted to make any money building bikes I'd need to either start charging at least double what I was asking for fillet brazed frames, or charge about the same but cut the production time down substantially. I figured TIG was the way to go and spent a week working with a really talented builder out west who had a solid background in architectural fab as well as framebuilding. I spent about 8hrs a day running beads, stacking plates, making triangles, moving from .058 to .035 to .028 and by the end of the week felt like I knew what I was doing. I went back to chicago, practiced some more, and hustled a gig building a run of 50 city bikes for a local shop.

I know Herbie Helm attributes working on the Ukranian transportation bikes that he's made with Doug Fattic with making him really really really effing good at fillet brazing, doing a sizable production run of pretty simple bikes afforded me the same opportunity to get a lot better with TIG welding. There's no substitute for sitting at a bench and welding 100 seat stay caps to 100 seat stays. There's no substitute for problem solving on the scale of 50 units. There's no other way to realise the work that scales and the work that doesn't (note to self: order the 4130 pre-polished next time, dum-dum). Suffice to say it was an eye opener.

The lack of production jobs in framebuilding (at least in N America) comes up pretty regularly in discussions about the state of the niche, or whatever you want to call it, and I think one thing to keep in mind is that it's totally possible to make those opportunities for yourself. I've done production work for three different shops (runs of 10, 12, and 50, respectively) and every time I come away hating it but grateful for the opportunity to do that much volume of repetitive work and improve all of my skills.

Anyway, that's been my experience.

[David Tollefson]

The owner of the shop I used to work in (part time) has had this idea of using a local builder to market a line of "local" bikes to some of the shops in the area -- something basic, an entry-level steel bike of a classic-ish style, mid-spec, and offer it at a good low-end price. We've talked about it extensively, and while I think I could do it and make some money at it (not a big margin by any means, and would be more for the building experience for me than the money I'd make doing it), I've not taken him up on it for a couple reasons that I'm willing to put out publicly:
(1) I'm just not equipped to do production runs like that. If I were fully mechanized, maybe. The time involved is greater than I'm willing to put into it at this point.
(2) The profit margin would be very low. And this is one of the things that I've heard a lot about, that not valuing the work ruins the market.

The opportunity is still out there if I want to go for it. And I may at some later date. Just not now.

[Mike Flanigan]

With the technology we use in hand built bicycles, the only efficiency gained is in one or two areas. Tube cutting and maybe painting [if on a conveyor]. All the rest is bench work one at a time by one worker at a time. You can batch frames all you want, but in the end it is just one at a time.

[Eric Estlund]

Change over times, prep, sets ups, design time, problem solving, etc. Small gains, but it can add up.

[incepi]

The lack of production jobs in framebuilding (at least in N America) comes up pretty regularly in discussions about the state of the niche, or whatever you want to call it, and I think one thing to keep in mind is that it's totally possible to make those opportunities for yourself.

Another Kickstarter example to support your argument:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...es/description