Crimping 753 chainstays - Bike Forums this is a link to a past thread that I posted my various crimping tools in. The wood block is perhaps the easiest to make with minimal tools and material costs. but it's a pain to keep the stay, the block and the form aligned while also winding down the vise jaws (in my case I already had made the block as a stay ovalizer so only had to make the steel crimping form). The solid and machined block was one of the first tools I made on my, then, new to me mill. What I thought was the final say isn't if the stays are already brazed in place, clearances for the tool's bulk are lacking. The 3 plate tool is my most recent version and the most flexible in how it is set up. I can crimp already made frames and loose stays easily. It needed no special tools to make but a saw, drill and careful laying out of dimensions. I went to a local steel house and bought the plate stock out of their scraps bin. All thread and common hardware didn't cost much too. Not shown is my attempt to make a pliers based crimper (not yet tried a C clamp one). I found a very large slip joint pliers requires too much effort to squeeze. perhaps a vise grip based one would work better.

A note about tool making- Early on I didn't have machine tools (lathe, mill) and so my self made tools were all about picking the best pre formed materials (channels, angles, strips) and dimensional adjustability (slots, large holes and would spend the time once the tool was assembled to get all it's aspects aligned WRT each other, then tighten down the fasteners to trap the alignment. This process is one I have used for a number of braze on tools, having a mill only makes the more current versions look better as the basic braze on holding aspects are much the same.

Tooling | Flickr This is a link to my Flicker album of many of my tools over the years. You'll see what I mean about non precision fabrication of the tools. Andy