Tooling Around at NAHBS

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Mitering fixtures, stem fixtures, frame fixtures, saws and miters, heat sinks, clamps, tube blocks.… The world of tools for the bike-builder can be endless. It can also be very simple.  

“You could get by with a nice work bench, vises and a hacksaw,” says Gary Mathis of United Bicycle Institute (UBI), which hosts roughly 20 framebuilding classes per year out of two Oregon schools. “Tooling just helps you speed up the process. Some of these guys are just tool nerds, too,” he says without any elaboration, laughter or gesturing, an indication that he means no disrespect.

The North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NABHS) focuses on the craft of building two-wheeled, human-propelled transport. But like other industry-specific trade shows, a big part of the event is showcasing the tools and equipment that make the builder’s job possible or more efficient.

“The tooling is all dependent on the person, what you want to do and how efficient you need to be to get the job done,” Mathis says.

Most of the tool-makers at NAHBS got their start as framebuilders. Sputnik Tool owner Jeff Buchholz originally built frames at Fat City Cycles and started Independent Fabrication. Now he works full time as a tool-maker, and 95 percent of his business at Sputnik is in the framebuilding market. He creates fixtures for frames, stays, heat sinks, wheel check tools, clamp sets, and more out of a shop in rural Maine.

Made of bronze, brass and steel, some parts are shiny and polished and look like they could adorn a Christmas tree. These chunks of shiny metal simply feel good in the palm of your hand. 

Others, like Sputnik’s seat stay mitering fixture are heavy. The steel fixture is about a foot long and 6 inches wide and sits at a slight angle on the tabletop. “The more rigid your setup, the more accurate your cut,” Buchholz says. He allows the $500 unit to be “loaned out” to framebuilders so they can get a feel for how it works. The framebuilder pays the shipping costs, and Buchholz lets them try it in hopes that he’ll make a sale.

HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE

Making tools was the next step in Buchholz’s history of loving, riding, repairing, and fabricating bicycles.

“It was a natural progression. I’m not sure what will come next,” he said. His framebuilding background also has enabled him to offer time- and money-saving advice to freshman framebuilders.

“Some of these guys know exactly what they want. Others are new to it or just getting into it and are not sure what they want,” he says. “I’ve made all the mistakes these people are calling me about. I’d like to help them not make the same mistakes.”

At NAHBS, Buchholz had a steady stream of builders browsing his tool line and seeking advice. One man, who recently started teaching framebuilding out of a little shop in Austin, stopped in to drool over some of the smaller tools. He asked about a water bottle drill fixture then talks shop with Buchholz.

“I hope to be in contact soon,” the guy says as he shakes Buccholz’s hand.

A GROWING COMMUNITY  

Another tool and frame component fabricator, Mark Norstad, has watched the handbuilt community grow from one in which it was difficult to find parts and tools to one now rich in quality offerings. The world of Googling has made for more ogling in the small, proud-to-be-independent bike-building scene. “It’s a lot easier to find stuff and a lot easier to make it,” says Norstad, a machinist who also cycled a bunch in the ’80s when mountain biking began to blossom.

The growth in the industry has kept his business, Paragon Machine Works, moving along, though, even if he didn’t intend to make custom bike parts and tools. 

When he lived in Marin County, he had lot of friends who rode. They all wanted custom stuff, and he was a machinist, the one who could fabricate the parts for them, and “it hasn’t stopped,” he says. “I found a niche. I didn’t intend to do bicycle work; I intended to do machine work. It turned out to be a natural fit for where I was at the time.”

Along with lugs, headtubes, braze-ons, cable stops, bottom bracket shells and dropouts, Norstad was at NAHBS displaying his tools: tube blocks (which help steady the tube while cutting/mitering); heat sinks (used while welding to minimize distortion of the steel); purge plugs (which help purge the off gases during welding so that welds are not compromised functionally or aesthetically); and hole saw arbors.

“There are so many more people building frames as a hobby. It can now be done in your garage because there is access to the tools,” he says. “I’m happy to make for both the professional and the hobbyist. I haven’t found a downside.”

STARVING ARTISTS

Oscar Camarena, owner of Arctos Fixtures, has been in the custom framebuilding industry for 23 years. He likes to think of a frame fixture as a canvas. It’s the tool that lets the framebuilding artist create a masterpiece.  

A frame fixture “is your hands that hold everything together so the builder can make the weld,” he says. “But it’s the artist that makes the final product.”

As the biggest piece of equipment, and as the tool that helps a builder make the most noticeable portion of the bike, the frame fixture often steals center stage. Some fixtures look like mini work benches with vises to match, others are simpler skeleton frames with clamp-like units to hold the tubing in place. They pivot, rotate, lay flat or vertical—all aimed at making the welding and brazing more efficient. 

Pointing to a circular “knuckle,” or universal joint, on the underside of the Arctos fixture he hauled from Yakima, Wash., to NAHBS, Camarena explained that the knuckle allows the fixture to rotate, spin or lock the fixture in place so the builder can conveniently work on all the frame’s joints from different angles.

Frame fixtures are not a light purchase; they can run $4,000 or better. “It’s like any other piece of big equipment—You buy that fixture and you’re committed. You want to make sure you buy the right thing for what you want to do. It’s an investment; you want to make sure it works for you.”

The Arctos fixture fits a variety of bike sizes, from a no-cranks, kiddie-size bike (which he recently made for his daughter) to a 29er. He also sells an extension kit with an extra seat tube holder for tandem frames.

“I built my first bike on a table. You’ve gotta evolve. [This fixture] has been refined since it was first made,” Camarena said of the fixture that was originally made more than 20 years ago by Gary Helfrich. Camarena, of course, still uses the Arctos fixture when fabricating bikes for his line, Simple. 

UBI recently purchased five Arctos frame fixtures to add to its stock of roughly 18. UBI teaches new and experienced framebuilders alike at its locations in Portland and Ashland, Ore., so a lot of the abuse of learning is taken out on their frame fixtures and other tools and equipment.

“A lot of the students are newbies. It’s the first time they’ve ever used that fixture,” UBI’s Mathis says. At UBI’s booth at NAHBS, a time-lapsed video of a class with those newbies building bikes at the Portland shop was looping in the background.

Nothing was wrong with UBI’s current fixtures; the institute simply needed more because class enrollment has increased. That means the school needs equipment that produces consistent results and sets up easily.

With a growing client base, custom bicycle tool-makers are on the cutting edge with their own craft to meet the desires of a range of other artists who create with steel, carbon fiber, titanium, wood and more. When new friends question Buchholz about his profession running Sputnik Tool he says he makes tools for the bike industry. “Then they ask, ‘What is that, like wrenches and hammers?’”

“Then I just say, ‘Well, it’s a little bit different than that.’”

Artists are often misunderstood. But that comes with the territory. Looking at the tools on display at NAHBS, you begin to realize these guys love what they’re doing. “It’s fun,” says Camarena, who got his start under Jeremy Cycip’s wing. “I don’t make a lot of money; it’s a starving artist sort of thing.”