Shop 'tour'
Like it was....
".....in the meantime would you like a word tour around the factory? If you stand in the main entrance just inside the roll up door large enough to admit a medium duty truck the little "cabin" containing the office would be to your left, built into the corner of the large " Butler" prefab warehouse in which the factory was contained. On the side of the cabin facing you would be stacks of cardboard boxes containing tubing. [digress..... Most of the stuff that was easy to get to was what we called "high ten" short for high tensile steel. I mentioned before that Ray was a well-educated man and many of us who worked for him had some years beyond high school to their credit. As far as I know all of us were above average brightness. I think Ray had some kind of charisma. At any rate, he expected us to think smart. I worked at milling fishmouths and drilling drain holes and various other tasks before he considered me for brazing. He was very old school, but that had its advantages and I learned a lot from him. There was a fair amount going on back in the seventies. Ray's approach to most innovations was inquiring skepticism. Do any of you remember the hooplah about the "plastic bicycle?" Ray took one look at the picture and said, "There's something funny here. They are only showing it from the left side." This particular plastic bicycle was as real as a three dollar bill. When certain manufacturer's started making fairings and recumbents Ray commented that while the materials were new and undoubtedly decreased weight and added strength the ideas dated back to the thirties and before... digress] Up against the side of the cabin around the corner from you was the door to the office inside. There were one or two heavy table with a vise. The files used to trim joints and finish fishmouths on tubing were in a wooden box kept on the shelf under the work surface and labeled "President's Files." (Ray's little joke) Ray had ordered special steel mounting blocks that would hold tubing at the proper angle for filing. Next to the intersection of the cabin and the side wall of the building was another roll-up door. In the space in front of the office Ray had set up the wheel-building stand. I think he either built this stand or had it built. I don't remember seeing a label on it. The next thing along the side wall was a set of large vats. These were elevated to permit piping and valving underneath. They were large enough that to work comfortably using hooks to put frames in and out of the baths one had to use the catwalk running alongside the vats about eighteen inches off the floor. The vats were large enough to hold a full rack of frames or harps. After every brazing the welded parts were dipped in a rinse to soften excess flux and then cleaned. Even standing on the catwalk the vats reached to my navel and were an arm's breadth wide and at least that that much in breadth and depth. I think there were six tanks. Next to them was the sandblaster then another roll up door. In the back corner on the same side as the cabin was the painting area. Ray did do the painting on the custom jobs and special orders and the high end machines. But on production bikes he had a contractor who came in when the weather was right and did them. The factory had a spray booth and an oven and Ray used good paint (ed. Imron in later years, but Ray always baked his finishes).
Forgive me for getting a bit fuzzy as we traverse across the back wall, the one opposite Steffani lane. I remember that the truing table was in this area and there were some racks for storing frames and harps that were in transit between one operation and another. About halfway up the right wall coming back toward the street was the brazing area. along the wall were some steel tables with setups for brazing dropouts into chainstays. In the center of this area were the forms for brazing harps and frames. There was also a setup for brazing custom forks. Between the brazing area and the front wall was some storage and a table where tubes and tires could be fitted onto wheels. The rest rooms were against the front wall. Running down the very center of the factory floor between the tanks and the brazing ares was a rail-like structure about about 24" high. It had steel cylinder uprights on top of it every meter or so. These were designed to fit into the seat mast of a frame and allow it to be rotated. Chain in bulk and hardware was alongside this line on wheeled carts. This was the final assembly area. After finishing, the frames were mounted on the rail upside down and the forks, stems and bars, drive trains. brakes and wheels were installed.
The layout of the factory was carefully planned to maximize the efficiency of labor. I don't think I ever saw more than five workers in the plant, usually just two or three, but we could turn out a bunch of bikes in a week because the factory was so well designed......"
...and from another co'worker:
"Before it went out to the chrome plater across town, we would put it on a steel truing table where we used steel templates to align the chain stays[unpainted or chrome plated....right after we finished out the lugs and emery papered those down] There was another template for general alignment for the whole frame.
When we were finished with truing the frame, we turned it upside down with the bottom bracket hung on a steel shaft and hand stamped the serial numbers onto the bottom side of the bottom bracket.BTW, I was allowed only 2 tools I had when I worked those
frames:
1) a sharpened flat file for digging out the excess silver alloy from around the lugs and dropouts and bottom bracket
2) a long strip of emery cloth for polishing the lugs & dropouts (prep for chrome plating)
No power tools ever touched that frame. All of it hand worked, from start to finish."