Super Rat Machine Works » SHOP NEWS

black cat bicycles

Phil — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:29:54 +0000

primarily our work is in aluminum. and it’s nice to change things up. these dropouts, made of good ol’ 4130 chromoly, are for todd over at black cat bicycles.
he makes handmade bicycle frames, utilizing this dropout design of his and subtle mods such as the ever so sightly radiused toptube on this bike which result in these wonderful examples of craftsmanship.
these are some pics of the process of making them for a peek at the drops on a finished frame have a look at his blog- http://www.blackcatbicycles.com/

shop class

Phil — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:18:13 +0000

back in high school i went through the machine shop program at the local technical school. this tap handle was one of the projects in that class. we use it a fair amount in the shop, for different little fixes and whatnot and it’s been pretty handy. it’s made from mystery metal, more than likely 1018 steel but you never know what was floating around in a school shop. a little oxy/acetylene torch work and the wire wheel gave it the “heat treated” look.just thought i’d share this with everyone. it’s satisfying using the things that you make, although i guess the flipside is true as well: it’s frustrating to make things that don’t work…

sickness…

Phil — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:15:46 +0000

i guess i’ve never really had the flu before… until last tuesday that is. i came down with what i anticipated being the usual cold that leaves you feeling crappy for 24 hours. ohhh no, not this time. sure on day three i tried to talk myself out of it, tell myself i was feeling pretty good, i even got out of the house which seemed like a monumental event. only it was terrible idea. i felt like i was playing a video game and my reflexes were slim to none. i turned around and went back home. the flu takes all the worst symptoms and rolls it into one package. fevers, headache,sinus pressure/drainage, sore throat, feeling like you just got kicked in the kidneys all night by who knows what? oh ya, the inability to keep any solid food in my system. oh yes, the flu. had i gone to the clinic 2 days earlier i could’ve gotten the flu shot but i missed that window and now have to wait it out… so it’s day 6 and i’m just now begining to go through e-mails and try to get caught up. essentially everything that was going on in the shop has had to be moved back a few days. tomorrow is a new day though and i’ll surely drink another gallon of oj.

new site and new projects!

Phil — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:20:43 +0000

well, thad has outdone himself once again. he’s reconfigured the site in a way that will allow Super Rat to move in some new directions. i am quite excited about the changes and the new look. he also showed me a nice DIY light box technique that worked much better than anticipated. construction: cardboard box cut, reshaped and reassembled with packing tape, some plastic that andy had laying around, apparently vellum works better but this seems ok. and a few light bulbs (60w) i really need one more for the other side but am making due with what i scavenged up today. have a peek.

Real hippies don’t wear sandals

Phil — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 21:55:02 +0000

so, my friend casey was telling me this story the other day that had absolutely nothing to do with hippies or sandals but he did touch on the fact that real hippies don’t (or didn’t) wear sandals. he had this science teacher in high school that pointed out that real hippies had to wear tennis shoes so they could run from the cops (or the man or the fuzz or whatever is the proper period terminology). thus hippies that wore sandals were posers. i’m just saying…
i don’t have a good segue from that story to the end of the year post i’ve been thinking about so i’m not even going to try to hide it.
steve crandall posted a good end of the year summary over at
www.fbmbmx.com

and i quote- “Plenty of ups, plenty of screw ups, some proud success’, as well as our fair share of failures.” that seems to sum up our year over here. and being on the other side looking back, all the things that have happened this year have led us in a positive direction. alot of changes have been made behind the scenes so to speak. my new wife courtney has been hard at work organizing the office, making sure we’ve got all the proper paperwork and putting into place procedural things that make the shop operate more efficiently. we’re concentrating on making fixtures that make the most of the new vf-1 as well as the ol’ tm-1. we’re addressing problem area’s in our overall process, in order to keep a consistent delivery schedule. the problem areas sometimes hide but when they rear their head it can be ugly. we do the best we can and try to improve as we go along.
i’m looking forward to this year, it is after all the year of the (super) rat and i believe good things are on the horizon…

happy new year everyone.