John- This reminds me of my formative years working in the city's "service"
bike shop. Winter on the Great Lakes made for a lot of "make work" between
the overhauls we tried to solicit. My bosses didn't believe in buying
prebuilt wheels and would order rims by the barrel, literally 50 rims
bundled up in a barrel shaped package. Hubs were either recycled or new by
the crate. Spokes (mostly Torrington with some Robergel Sports) came in 500
unit boxes. My fingers wouldn't take more then 6-9 wheels a day before the
skin would be too raw from handling nipples, no nipple drivers back then. I
still remember my surprise when one Spring we got a prebuilt wheel order
from a supplier (maybe HW Georger Co.). We all thought the quality was not
very good but we were happy to not be lacing up so many wheels. Funny now a
days it's a cool repair that needs a hand built wheel.
Andy Stewart
Raleigh, NC
-------
>
> > 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
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> End of Classicrendezvous Digest, Vol 76, Issue 68
> *************************************************