From Humble Beginnings

The humble start. Click to enlarge.

As you’ve probably noticed from the pictures I post on here, I don’t have the super-fancy workshop that a lot of other builders have. There’s not $20,000 of Anvil fixtures laying about, nor racks full of tubing. I don’t post nifty pictures of freshly-TIG’ed titanium. There’s not a lovingly cared-for Bridgeport mill in the background.

No, I make do with what I’ve got and can afford. I’m bootstrapping myself into this rather than laying out twenty to thirty grand on equipment up-front. I work in my garage, which I’ll be doing some work on in the coming weeks in preparation for winter: expanding my electrical capacity, insulation and drywall will follow.

After that, I’ll start putting money toward Anvil equipment, a mill and a lathe, a nice drill press. The things that would be “nice to have” but aren’t absolutely necessary to build a bike with.

Someday, the TIG welder will come along, and so will an Anvil fixture. So I can start dabbling in titanium.

The most important thing in that fully built-out shop, will be a picture of my current workbench, in a frame, so I can remember where I came from. I don’t ever want to forget the time when I had to “think like a framebuilder” (as Wyganowski once told me I was doing) — using the tools at-hand to a bit of creativity to come up with amazing pieces of craftsmanship.