Instead I'll simply say that any mechanic will find tremendous value in tools. Someone can buy a tool when they need it, use it, and then keep it for the next time they need it. Tools don't expire, and most will require an enormous amount of abuse to "wear out." Tools can easily pass from one generation to the next, fulfilling their duties over the years. When this happens, those tools have even more value than anything off the shelf at a hardware store.
Keri and I visited our hometown of Richmond, Indiana late October this year. While back home, I took a day to go through my dad's tools. Partly I was curious as to what exactly he had, and partly I was wanting to take some back to Arizona with me. Besides simply wanting some basic tools, such as wrenches, screwdrivers and pliers, I was also wanting the remainder of his bicycle tools. Several months after starting my job at the bike shop in Indiana, he let me go through his bicycle tools to pick out what I wanted, and I made out with roughly a third of what he had. Now, I wanted all of them.
I wanted them because they were his. I am openly quite materialistic, and it is common for a physical thing to have significant meaning to me. This, I think, goes with being mechanically inclined. My dad's tools, all of them, are significant to me, simply because they were his and they were what he used on a daily basis. He used his tools to wrought what others could not, and they were immensely valuable to him.
But they are not only valuable to me in a keepsake sort of way. I want to use them. I want to use his tools to continue the sort of work he did. In that way, I can honor him and make him proud of what I'm doing with my life. They were passed onto me, and I'm going to use them. It's as simple as that.
I now have, by my best reckoning, all of the bike tools he had in the later part of his life. It is likely that he gave something away at some point or another, as he was at times charitable with these sorts of things, but that doesn't bother me too much. I don't mind the tendrils of my father's generosity vining out and taking root in others lives.
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| All of my dad's bike tools. Taken November 13, 2013 |
Here they are. Enough to run a successful shop in 1994, not so much for a modern shop, but it will be a good start some day. Things to note:
- The assortment of brake tools in the center. Used to secure caliper brakes in a closed position while tightening pinch bolts, they don't really make stuff like this anymore, to my knowledge.
- The twenty-four freewheel removal tools at the top. There are a lot of duplicates, but there are also some really cool ones. A few SunTour made ones stand out, as well as a three-pronged one I had never seen before. I'll be excited if I ever need to use that to remove a freewheel.
- The large array of bottom bracket associated wrenches on the right. Again, lots of duplicates, and a few cool ones as well. One of the lock-ring spanners is made by Sugino. Definitely holding onto that.
- The truly most valuable tool in the assortment is the homemade headset cup press at the bottom. Normally a very expensive tool from Park, my dad decided to save some money (or possibly some time) and made his own. It's a very simple mechanism, there is really nothing special to it. One side doesn't move and the other side does, and with it you're able to press the cups for a headset into a frame.
I'm very happy to have these. I'm going to keep them for as long as I live, and every time I use one, I'll remember my parent's bike shop that I spent time in as a kid, occasionally watching my dad fix bikes as I tried to sneak into his parts bins to play with the ball bearings.
