Making things.

Tools are always good. Some can be bought (which always saves time) and some need to be made.

I prefer making tools because most things related to bicycles are strange and require lots of little things that standard tools do not work with. One tool is a kind of go/no go tool that helps check the spacing, centering and perpendicularity of the rear end relevant to the head tube and seat tube. This can be done with height gauges and other simple tools (which I have used and am happy with) but there was that nagging feeling and I wanted to make my version of a tool M&L (Marchetti and Lange) has been offering for many years. This past month I needed to order some MIC 6 aluminum and figured it was a good time to make this tool (it is total overkill for the job but I had the stock) .

Here it is after about 1 day of machining and about 300+ days of thinking about it and then rethinking about it. It can check the spacing for 100mm up to whatever I want. The two 3/4" sections which currently are set at 135mm can be replaced with anything I want. I have 120mm (track), 130mm, 135mm and the tool itself is 100mm.

It was a fun project and I am rather proud of the result.

The brass tipped knob is so the mast does not get scored from when you set the tool in place.

Sorry for the fingers, tomorrow is my day of extra special cleaning!

Cheers,
Drew