David,
Thanks for you kind compliments. I'm flattered. I really enjoy shareing this information with everyone. This particular series has generated an unusual amount of compliments for some reason. I may not get around to thanking everyone who has sent me mail to that effect. Please know that I appreciate the feedback and the opportunity to sit in Dales' living room with all of you and chew the fat and relive the great magical times of the early Masi years. I believe this was a very special and unique situation in the world of framebuilding and I cannot express how lucky I feel to have accidentially been there. It is my pleasure to pass it along to everyone.
If I were to end up with a bestseller, my former wife would go insane with envy. It's probably best that I stay a small fish. I'm quite happy with my position in this intimate group of absolutely fantastic people. Besides, it has been my experience that commercial publishers don't seem to like what I have to say. I don't "play the game" that suits the commercial marketing oriented bicycling publications. They don't have he huevos to print me and I can do nothing for them or their readers it seems.
Thanks Dale for letting me spout off here. I really enjoy it as long as I have time. Thank you all for listening.
Brian Baylis (SSOT) La Mesa, CA
>
> As always, Brian, you're entertaining and informative
> at the same time--if our culture properly appreciated
> bikes and cycling, you'd have a book on the bestseller
> list and be getting interview requests from everyone
> from Bill O'Reilly to Terry Gross! Off-topic, but if
> any listmember who lives in or is planning to visit
> the Portland area wants to know the route of a
> fantastic road ride (scenic, challenging without being
> body-trashing, and where you'll see fewer than 50 cars
> in 72.5 miles) email me off-list. We just did it
> yesterday.
> David Feldman
> Vancouver, WA
>
> --- Brian Baylis <rocklube@adnc.com> wrote:
> > Hello everyone,
> >
> > Time again to set the "Wayback Machine" for a trip
> > to the past. Set the
> > controls to early 1974, Mr. Peabody. We will be
> > visiting the Masi, CA
> > workshop in Carlsbad, California as fledgling
> > framebuilder Brian Baylis
> > gets his first opportunity to participate in the
> > actual framebuilding
> > process. What fun!
> >
> > Apparently I had demonstrated to the Italians that I
> > probably would not
> > destroy anything if they turned me loose on metal
> > parts. Faliero, Mario,
> > and Roberto had gone home to Italy for the holidays
> > over Christmas; but
> > only Mario Confente would return. Faliero was not
> > elgible to return for
> > another 6 months stay according to the visa laws.
> > Roberto had a
> > girlfriend in Italy and supposedly wasn't interested
> > in returning to the
> > US to continue in Carlsbad. He was younger than
> > Mario and rather
> > reserved. He probably felt more confortable at home,
> > not to mention he
> > had a ladyfriend there. Mario returned to take the
> > position as shop
> > foreman once Faliero was out of the picture, which
> > is why Mario was
> > allowed to return on a visa extention. While Faliero
> > was there Mario was
> > subserviant to Faliero, sort of walked around on
> > eggshells, and was
> > clearly not really impressed with what Faliero knew
> > about framebuilding.
> > Once Masi wasn't there, Mario grew some balls and
> > suddenly the whole
> > atmosphere was different. Mario immediately began to
> > do things his own
> > way and was apparently not speaking highly of
> > Faliero to Simonetti, who
> > was the only other person who spoke Italian once the
> > others left. We
> > only kinda got the drift by the way they were acting
> > and a few of the
> > "jokes" that were made about "the old man". I missed
> > Faliero.
> >
> > My first encounter with Mario personally once he was
> > in charge sticks in
> > my mind. It is one of the more humorous things that
> > happened to me while
> > I worked there. In the production situation there,
> > everything was done
> > in relativly large quantities. That is the best
> > situation for learning.
> > One would usually spend several days or a week or so
> > doing one
> > particular job. By the time you were done one could
> > be quite expert at
> > the task at hand. My first filing assignment was to
> > file front dropouts
> > that had been brazed to fork blades. The dropouts
> > were brazed into
> > straight forkblades and they would line them up on a
> > workbench that had
> > your vise mounted to one end. There were probably
> > 200 fork blades to
> > file. It looked like a lot of work. The operation
> > itself is relativly
> > simple and involved two basic steps. First, the
> > edges of the dropout had
> > to be squared off and then blended into the
> > forkblade so that it flowed
> > smoothly and gracefully together, making sure to not
> > undercut anything
> > or take anything off of the raised area of the
> > dropout. This was done
> > with a 12" half round bastard file initially and
> > then smoothed in for
> > the final bit with a 6" half round smooth file. Once
> > that was
> > accomplished you had to work on the part of the
> > blade that had been
> > filled with brass. Care was to be taken not to file
> > off the raised area
> > again, this time from the side as opposed to around
> > the outside edge.
> > Further, one must not file a trough or undercut the
> > surface of the
> > dropout as you used about a 10" round bastard file
> > to make a radius on
> > the brass from the side of the dropout to the edge
> > of the forkblade.
> > This requires a little care. Smaller files can be
> > used but the radius
> > begins to come back on itself and looks like crap
> > compared to using a
> > bigger file and producing a consistant even radius.
> > One tries to make
> > them even on both sides. It is finished off by
> > sanding with 80 grit
> > emory cloth.
> >
> > On this day, Mario showed me what to do by doing a
> > demonstration part to
> > use as a "sample". It was set on the bench along
> > side the other 199
> > parts and I was instructed to proceed and work
> > carefully until I got the
> > hang of it. Mario was to return in about an hour to
> > see how it was going
> > just to make sure I wasn't going to ruin a whole lot
> > of parts. He went
> > off to his other duties and I cautiously set to
> > work, as is my nature. I
> > do my best to understand instructions and do as I
> > was instructed. Within
> > about an hour, Mario returned to inspect my
> > production so far. When he
> > returned there were about 8 or 9 parts filed and
> > lined up as I was
> > progressing down the row. The entire bench was
> > covered with the
> > forkblades. Nervously I awaited his critique. He
> > looked at each blade
> > one by one. Things were going fine until he reached
> > for one blade and
> > suddenly he was displeased. I thought crap, I must
> > have messed one up
> > somehow. Mario says "this one is no good" through
> > the interperter. I
> > looked it it myself and suddely realized that it was
> > the sample! The
> > others all matched and were done in a consistant
> > manner, as is my habit.
> > Before I realized, in my 20 year old lack of
> > diplomacy, I blurted out
> > that that was the one he had done as a sample. Mario
> > wasn't amused.
> > Nothing drastic happened on account of that incident
> > I don't think, but
> > Mario probably wasn't too pleased with the
> > longhaired California
> > smartass at the time. Later on after work, at home
> > with my friends I
> > laughed my ass off because it was so classic. There
> > were a lot of funny
> > things that happened like that; that was one of my
> > earlier looks at what
> > the Italians were like. This reminds me of something
> > even funnier that
> > happened while Faliero was there that will perhaps
> > give everyone an idea
> > of what I'm talking about. It goes right along with
> > the fact that Mario
> > would come back to the shop or stay late or whatever
> > was neccessary to
> > fix any mistake HE had made during the day that he
> > didn't want us
> > Americans to see him doing. Years later when
> > Simonetti told me about
> > this I really split a gut. What the hell is wrong
> > with being human and
> > subject to making a mistake once in a while?
> >
> > During a bike assembly that Faliero was doing, which
> > is what he did most
> > of the time while he was there, he had a bike nearly
> > completed when he
> > realized that the top nut of the headset wasn't
> > going to tighten because
> > the steerer was about 1mm too long. The bike was in
> > the stand and nearly
> > completed, so he decided not to take the fork out of
> > the frame to make
> > the small cut. He removed the bar and stem that was
> > still connected to
> > the brake cables and let them hang. He took off the
> > top nut and was
> > going to just slice of the offending millimeter with
> > the hacksaw as the
> > bike was in the stand. Well, as he was cutting
> > towards the frame the saw
> > slipped and it slid across the top tube of the
> > frame, and needless to
> > say left some nice big hacksaw marks there. Faliero
> > blurted out the
> > Italian equivelent of "God Damn it!!" (a little help
> > here Pergolizzi,
> > something like "Adia Voya" is how it sounds) and
> > suddely everyone in the
> > shop looked up from their work. The workshop was
> > very large and the
> > assembly area was a ways away from where most of the
> > work was done.
> > Suddenly he realized that everyone was looking to
> > see what happened and
> >
> === message truncated ===
>
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