rootboy 

That picture just makes me warm all over.

I have a Gerstner chest too, Otis. Same pattern. Was the only thing sitting in this house when we bought it. The seller was going to take it but I asked how much to just leave it sitting there. Twenty bucks. Done!
I keep my fly tying stuff in it. All the machinist tools go in the Kennedys.

qclabrat

Good stuff Tom, you've done good work
So are you aware of co-ops in NJ, more the grassroots type not ones with big websites and such

noglider 

There is -- or was? -- the Bike Library in New Brunswick.

There is the Boys and Girls Club Bike Exchange in Newark. Run by my friend Ryan. Great guy. He and his wife were frame builders. Maybe they still are. Lately, they are baby builders. Their son's name is Axel! I forgot their daughter's name.

qclabrat

Otis, that's some real nice craftsmanship
Is that your profession or just a hobby?

jimmuller 

Me too, and I don't really know how to use them all but wish I did.

The only tools of note left behind when we bought our house were Black & Decker, an electric chainsaw and a small reciprocating saw. And a few minor hand tools like a crank-driven drill and some pipe wrenches.

qclabrat

Excellent, found a few more outfits here, https://njbikeped.org/bicycle-rehab-l...in-new-jersey/

I'll be contacting the Exchange in Plainfield today

Sir_Name 

Yes indeedy. Some gorgeous stuff in the link. I'm hoping to have a couple of chanrings pass through his shop after the holidays (and once I find the right big ring...).

KonAaron Snake 

False modesty does not become you, as any of us who have your tinkering can attest. For sure Otis is a talent, and I hope to purchase his work some day, but yours is very fine as well.

Sir_Name 

And Scott's a pleasure to deal with.

Otis

About Half my income at this time.

Otis

I think that is true modesty, which can be admired. And I know Rootboy can run circles around me on the lathe!

Otis

I picked that one up at an estate sale. Retired pattern maker's box, completely full of measuring tools. I use a lot of them everyday, but have no idea what some of them are. But every once in awhile a light will go off and you can grab something out of there and it's just what you needed (if maybe not the intended use).

The center top drawer still has all the old Trade Union books, reference charts and old slide-rule cards from the 1940's through the early 60's. These were some sharp guys doing this work in the day!

rootboy 

Thanks, A. I can get there, if I take my time. This little item only took me 2 days.

rootboy 

You said it. Especially pattern makers. But any true, old-school machinist is a wizard in my book.
Sadly, there are fewer of them every day.

KonAaron Snake 

Correction accepted

I believe we both share the same opinion on the quality of his work. We are lucky to have craftsmen such as you two, frank the welder, drillium dude and Rudi in our midst. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of course.

jeirvine 

I'm down to just 8 bikes complete and ready to ride, and just a couple longer term projects. I found that any bike I kept, I wanted to be able to ride. And keeping all of them in good tires, and serviced became more of an expense in $$ and time than I wanted to invest, especially now that I have a taste for nicer tires and decent saddles. Eight is enough.

jeirvine 

Oh, and there are definitely bike hoarders around, though I doubt any frequent this forum. Here's a sad example of a now rusty and worthless pile that an estate is having to deal with:
Lots and Lots of Bikes (Bicycles) and Bicycle Parts

Route 66

Wow, you guys are to cycling what Jay Leno is to motoring!

Reynolds 

Not my place, but an old shop I went into once:

turky lurkey

How do they accumulate so many bikes? Must take a lot of effort, even if most of them are department store junk.

Velocivixen

Yes, a good, bright shop light is on the list, as is one of those ceiling bike hoist systems that someone mentioned in the "bike stand" thread.

Brent in San Francisco has a great view and I would love a space like that. So many varied and interesting shops. I like seeing where you all do your "magic" - making the old and perhaps forgotten, alive and rejuvenated. Something really sound about that.

My my space is a work in progress. Some one put that ugly fake wood paneling on the wall, and I will take it down and put up drywall. Haven't done drywall before but I'm certain with some research that it's within my abilities. Anyway, I digress.

jwarner

I like how your shop is set up. Everything within reach, enough room to move the bike around, or to move around the bike, but no more room or "stuff" than you need. Looks very efficient (except that air compressor -- that would probably scare the wits out of me were I concentrating on something when it came on).

D1andonlyDman

I bought both the Trek and the Tommasini when they were current new bikes - the Trek in 1980 and the Tommasini in 1986. From the mid 1970s to the late 1980s, I was a serious rider - including having ridden across the U.S. in the summer of 1979 - and I bought the Trek with contribution from my parents to celebrate having crossed that item off of the bucket list, as my first build from a frame set, and since I really beat the crap out of my bike, a Rolls, on my cross-country trip. I bought the Tommasini to celebrate my first really good paying professional job which gave me plenty of disposable income - and it was also built for performance, whereas the Trek was built up for touring, including mountains, while loaded with gear - although it's still a pretty responsive frame, but not as fast as the Tommasini, and the componentry is entirely different on both, being optimized for very different purposes. Then, less than a couple of years after I got the Tommasini, of course, I got caught up in a career that involved long hours, and life in general intervened, and in the course of chasing rats in the rat race, I stopped riding, and put on well over 100 pounds over 25 years or so, going from 150 up to 284. I really didn't get on either of those bikes for more than 10 minutes at a time, maybe a dozen times, over the next 25 years. But I still had them. Well, about a year and a half ago, as I was maxing out the meds for Type II Diabetes, my doctor told me that my next choices were bariatric surgery or insulin, so I got serious about losing weight. Initially through diet alone, I dropped about 30 pounds. Then I started swimming regularly, and along with diet, I dropped another 25. Well, with the weather getting colder, and my favorite lap pools all outdoors, I figured that I was now in decent enough shape to get back on the bikes, and that was less than 2 months ago. I put both bikes back into riding trim, and I'm down to 205 now. But the reality is, I'm not hung up on bikes, it's biking that I'm interested in. I only would buy a bike if I actually had a need for the bike. The Trek and the Tommasini, being set up quite differently for different terrain and purpose, really would be all of the road bikes I need - except, as I said, I spend a lot of time doing stuff for my elderly parents at their house, which is 25 miles away from mine, and I wanted to have a bike to leave there - but I didn't want to not have my Trek here at my house, because I'm using it here, for things my Tommasini can't do, like very steep lengthy hills - of which there are plenty around my house, and carrying stuff like groceries. So that's the rationale for the Cannondale - to have a bike to leave at my parents house. And I also wanted something with a different frame material than steel which I'm very familiar with, and with 130mm rear spacing that could take a modern drivetrain without cold-setting my Trek frame. And really, other than maybe a fat-tire mountain bike for off-road trail riding, I couldn't see getting another one. The reality is, I'm pretty expert on bikes and components and bike technology up to 25 years ago - just not the current stuff - since I have a 25 year gap in my bicycling activity. But I have no desire to collect bikes that I don't actually have a need and a genuine use for. My initial inquiries in this thread did not start out as trolling - I was genuinely curious as to why people would have dozens of bikes that they obviously were not using the majority of. I do admit that when I started getting attacked for asking the questions, rather than getting genuine, non-defensive answers, I ramped up the aggressiveness of my responses.

And honestly, before I actually ride the thing, who knows if I'll keep the Cannondale or flip it, but I'd only flip it if it turns out I don't like riding an Aluminum frame bike.

KonAaron Snake 

FYI - the enter/return key is on the right hand side of your keyboard, roughly in the center. You can use it to break up monotonous blocks of unreadable text, like that above.

You can also use the enter/return key to create things called paragraphs. A paragraph leads with a sentence that states what the paragraph is about, and is then supported and expounded upon by a few additional sentences. Typically 4-6 sentences comprise these things called paragraphs.

Italuminium

I really like @gomango's laconic posting style.

short statements with many linebreaks.

cuts the bull, tells you what you need to know.