Chuck and everyone,
Regarding how the wheels were laced at Masi; I'll describe the drive side of the rear wheel. The rest goes the same from there.
Nine spokes, length 305mm for the drive side of the rear wheel, were
dropped in every other spoke hole on the drive side of the hub as you
hold the hub in your hand drive side up. First spoke is inserted into
first hole to the left of the valve hole; it will be a "high side" hole.
>From there, put a spoke into every fourth hole in rim, tighten until two
threads show. We used a small screw driver to turn the nipple once it
was on the spoke. Once all nine were in, each spoke was bent at the
flange to angle towards rim. Then the hub was twisted counterclockwise.
You had to find the correct hole to insert spoke #10 by holding a spoke
to the rim hole and finding where is goes to the hub as it crosses 4
spokes. Spoke #10 is inserted fron the underside of the hub. First spoke
is put in and a nipple attached. Then put in the remaining 8 spokes from
underneith and attach to nipples while "lacing" the spokes under the
previous spokes.
Turn wheel over, find proper starting hole for spoke #19. The spokes on the left side of the rear wheel were 307mm, as were all of the spokes for the front wheel. There is some weaving to get some of the spokes in on the second side. No big deal. That's basically how it went. I don't know which spokes you call what. Wheels aren't really my bag, Baby.
I think my next job after a session of about two weeks or so was to help in the bike assembly area by doing sub-assemblies. This was fun; I learned Falieros' basic way of putting a bike together, and it was a welcome brake from the "wheel pile". I had built a surplus of wheels by the time they decided there were enough wheels, and once the wheel racks were full there was still a pile of them on the floor.
We wore these blue work aprons there. I was thinking today as I was working, that it would be really cool to have one of those aprons from the early Masi of days now. Oh well. They didn't belong to us anyway, they were supplied by the rag service. I was also looking at one of those Faliero Masi photos that Joe Starck had for sale recently; and Faliero is wearing one like it. It always cracked me up that under Falieros' apron was impeccable Italian clothing, complete with a handsomely tailored long sleeve shirt, snazzy beltless slacks, and fine Italian shoes. He was a dapper and fashion conscious gentleman.
We had these bins that were to hold pre-assembled parts to streamline assembly of completed bikes. Pedals had to have toe clips attached and toe straps installed. We rivited the ends of the toe straps just like they did them in Italy. I did lots of these sets. Then I did mounting stems to handlebars, which cannot be scratched, and then put on the brake levers. The levers had to be proberly positioned, the stem at the proper angle, everything properly tight. Every nut and bolt was to be oiled or greased as neccessary during assembly. A drop of oil in the nut before tightening down the brake lever on the bar, etc. We had a fixture for setting the stem angle and we leveled the levers by "rocking" them on the bench to check for level. Then I taped the bars in some, but not all cases. I put saddles on seat posts. Put freewheels on all of the wheelsets. It was totally fun to wallow in oceans of Campy parts as we opened box after box and tossed them aside. We filled the dumpsters with them! There was a "parts cage" inside the workshop area where all of the components were kept, still in crates direct from Campagnolo. It was kept locked. I got to go in on many occassions to bring out quantities of goodies for the assembly projects. It was a very neat experience. Also inside the cage, were any items that were "special"; like the Columbus Record tubes sets and such. Holy Cow!
After a while, between all of the wheels and sub-assemblies I had topped up all that was needed for quite a while of bike production. It was time for me to get my first taste of metalworking on the shop floor. My next segment will go into how we were trained in the numerous preliminary filing operations required to feed the framebuilder with ready to go parts. I did everything in the filing job line except do finish filing of brazed frames. I picked that part up from two people there in "after hours" sessions, which I will explain.
Today I spent most of my day working on one of the most complex and demanding paint jobs I've ever been faced with. The frame is an actual work of art by Richard Moon. There is very little made in the way of handmade bike frames in this day and age that truely deserve the title of a "Masterpiece"; but this one unquestionably qualifies. It has been a terrific struggle for me to get through this one, but the massive amount of extra time it takes to highlight this work with a paint job is worth it. Working on a bike this refined and complex is emotionally and physically demanding. You can't imagine how exciting it is to work on frames of this caliber. There is no substitute for the work it takes to make something like this. The accomplishment is monumental. Just had to say that. The bike brings back the excitement of being a young aspiring framebuilder back in the days of Masi. Everything was exciting then; now it takes a creation of this magnitude to blow MY dress up!
Brian Baylis (SSOT)
La Mesa, CA