Power Tool Selloff

When Megan went overseas I bought a pile of tools and stuff off her, while she was in her "get rid of everything right now" mood, so I ended up with a few duplicates. Including some bulky power tools, so I'm selling those off. Pics and stuff at moz.net.nz, email me or ring me if you're interested.



Workshop construction continues, probably post more pics later but I'm still working on the bench, adding drawers right now, then a shelf. And waiting for Ben to send me bike bits.

Workshop!

I've finally found a flat where I can actually build bikes. We have a single garage about 8m long by 3m wide with brick walls and no close residents. So I've started by installing 10 hooks along one wall to hang bikes on (and all the hooks are full, but we still have bikes left over). Between me (three bikes hanging, two not), Phuong (three bikes hanging) and Mitchell (four bikes hanging). Unfortunately that uses about 5m of wall and there's not much left for the quad and binbike (each about 2m long).

So I've bought a TIG welder and built a 2m long workbench that will eventually have a lockable shelf for the welder and tools, but right now just has a vice on it. This week I will hopefully get the shelf and drawers installed, and another shelf up in the garage to hold more of the stuff we seem to have accumulated.

I'll probably blog more about it, but mostly just update the page at Mozbike where I will describe the stuff I use to build the bikes you see here. You don't need lots of expensive tools, people like Alex have almost everything you need in a much smaller space and much lower cost, but I've been there and done that, and now I want something a little better. At Ken's place I built One Less Ute in a space exactly 5cm shorter than the frame, with no flat surfaces. It was not fun. Designing bikes to fit around the workshop is a bit of an avoidable limitation. So since it's my workshop, the bench is two metres long and there's a decent vice bolted to one end, and a nearly decent vice bolted to the other end. And I have a TIG welder. But I'm going to have to sell half the tools I got off Megan, having two circular saws, two power drills and a router is a bit much.

More details on Mozbike.com

20" Wheeled Commuter Bike

I've destroyed two 8 speed Shitmano nexus hubs so far, they each lasted about 5000km before failing. I've decided they are just not designed for people like me. So I've got a third one in my commuter (a 26" wheel On-One "Inbred" singlespeed frame). I'm pretty happy with the bike except for the hub, but putting a proper hub into it would be quite tricky, and I'd have to buy another one (about $2000).

So instead I will spend way more than $2000 on a TIG welder, tools and tubing to build my own. I told you I was a really smart guy!

My plan at this stage is to put my 20" wheel Rohloff into a forth bike, this time a fairly lightweight commuting frame. Possibly even a frame that breaks in the middle so it packs smaller for transport. If the bike works I'll build one for Phuong too, as her existing 24" wheel MTB is somewhat on the heavy side for someone who only weighs 50kg or so.

But first there's tools to acquire, workshop to arrange, and bits to buy.