Hi John,
I pretty much did the same thing except that Winter wheel building thing escalated into a full-time, around the calendar gig; and I had a few employees. I started doing it on the side starting in 1973 and I did it full time from 1977 until 1990. I wore the chrome plating off of one of those bronze (Mickey Mouse lookin) spoke wrenches that Schwinn used to sell.
Jamie Swan Northport, NY, USA jswan@webb-institute.edu http://www.jamieswan.net http://www.limws.org http://www.liatca.org
On Apr 18, 2009, at 1:27 PM, John Thompson wrote:
> Jerome & Elizabeth Moos wrote:
>
>> I figured that, but even as a bit of supplemental income, this would
>> be a lot of work. So how much more does a shop pay for your wheels
>> than a set from the sweatshop, or for those 4 per hour ones done by
>> shop guys at home? I imagine that you clients are mostly the more
>> conscious shops, that don't want to spend their own labor on low end
>> wheels, but don't want to let shoddy product out the door either.
>
> The first shop I worked for back in the 70s would pretty much close
> down
> for winters, but we had a deal with one of the distributors to build
> wheels for them during the off season. I'd go in about once a week and
> pick up a pile of rims, spokes and hubs and bring them home to build,
> returning the built wheels the next week when I picked up my new
> supplies. I don't remember how much I got paid, but it wasn't a whole
> lot. Pretty lean times until the shop opened again in the spring. I
> sure
> got a lot of practice building wheels, anyway!
>
> --
>
> -John Thompson (john@os2.dhs.org)
> Appleton WI USA