Bob Hovey's Masi Registry

Bob Hovey’s Registry of Masi Frames has been around for many years, in fact I borrowed the idea when I opened my own Dave Moulton Registry in 2010.

Just today I got a request from Jonathan Justman, original owner of a Masi Gran Criterium serial number D8016. He asked if it could be added to my Dave Moulton Registry. I had to explain that there is no section for Masi frames on my registry, as I do not consider them to be my frames.

I was employed to build these frames from October 1980 until December 1981, but they were built strictly to Faliero Masi’s design. In fact, the frame shop where I worked had a set of “Jig-frames,” unpainted frames in every size, that were actually built by Faliero himself.

These were used to set up the frame jig and ensured that every frame built was an exact copy of the “jig” frames. The various adjustable clamps that held the tubes in the jig were loosened and the jig frame then clamped in place.

Once the set up was complete, and the jig frame removed, the jig was set to this particular size. I simply had to miter the tubes to fit, it was not even necessary that I knew what size frame I was building.

Also, as a paid employee I had no legal rights, to the Masi brand name, and I still don’t. I cannot claim that these are my frames, any more than a journalist in paid employment can claim copywrite for the articles they wrote. The product produced is the property of the employer, not the employee.

Having said that the California Masi frames built during my tenure mentioned above, were not only date stamped, but were marked SMC for San Marcos, California. The date stamp was in the form of A, B, C, and D representing the four quarters of the year, followed by the last two digits of the year. Followed by two more digits that were the number frame that quarter.

Jonathan Justman’s frame number D8016 was built around the end of October 1980 and has the SMC, so there is a good possibility I built it. Ted Kirkbride who owned the shop and subcontracted to build the Masi’s at that time, also built some of the custom orders like track frames or odd sizes.

If owners of the SMC frames with serial numbers starting D80**, A81**, B81**, C81**, and D81**, feel they have some added value having been built by me, I am flattered but lay no claim to these frames.

They belong on Bob Hovey’s Masi Registry, were a few of them have a side note that I built them.

One of a kind, Masi Aero Bike

I arrived in San Marcos, California in October 1980, and began work building Masi frames. One of the first projects I worked on was building an aero bike for the 1981 New York Bicycle Trade Show. Masi had been presented a New Shimano AX group of components, and a set of Tangi aero tubing.

The aero shaped tubing presented several problems, one of the being the seat post, which were normally round, however, this new Shimano group had a fully aero shaped seat post, that matched the inside profile of the aero seat tube.

I seem to remember making a steel insert that I filed to match the shape of the trailing edge on the aero seat post. A single screw pressing on this insert facilitated height adjustment and clamping of the seat post. A rubber gasket sealed the top of the seat tube to prevent moisture entering.

The aero tube set, and the fully aero seat post never made it past the experimental stage, or into full production. I am sure sample sets would have been sent to various bike manufactures worldwide, and it would be interesting to know how many ( Or indeed how few.) actually produced a show bike from it.

One also has to remember this was some years before aero handlebars came into use, and carbon fiber allowing for aero designs, so really the whole concept was ahead of its time.

Frames could not be assembled in a standard frame jig designed to accept round tubes. For the same reason the tubes could not be machine mitered but had to be painstakingly hand shaped with a hacksaw and file. There were no lugs to fit the tubes, so the whole frame had to be fillet brazed.

The bottom bracket shell is stamped SMC 56 on one side for San Marcos California, 56 being the frame size. The other side where the serial would normally go, it was stamped DM1. There never was a DM2 or any others built by me.

You will notice there are no cable guides under the bottom bracket. This is because the rear brake and gear cables are run through steel tubes inside the frame. (See pictures.) The paint was done by Masi’s painter Jim Allen.

Ted Kirkbride who owned the Masi shop and was contracted to build the Masi frames, kept this bike until about 2010, when he sold it to a German collector. The bike resides in this collector’s private museum in Germany.

I never considered the Masi Gran Criterium frames I produced as mine, because they were built strictly to Faliero Masi’s design. But this particular frame I seem to remember I was given a freehand in the design and construction. Therefore, I appreciate the fact that it was stamped DM1, in recognition of my work.

Normally the Masi frames were stamped A,B,C,D for each quarter of the year. “A” was for Jan, Feb, March, and so on. Followed by two digits that was the year. The last two digits was the number frame that quarter. I started with Masi on October 1980, so the ones I built were D80**, A81**, B81**, C81**, and D81**. Coupled with the stamp SMC for San Marcos, California, as there were other Masi frames built at another location.

Here is an article on how my involvement in aero tube bikes started.

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Success and Fate

Looking back on the United States part of my framebuilding career, although some of my success I created, fate also played a large role.

For example, in 1980 I went for a job interview with Trek, in Wisconsin. I didn’t get the position, but later that same year I landed a job with Masi in Southern California.

When I eventually started my own business, I was definitely in the right place. California, and in particular the southern part of that state, has a climate where one can ride a bike year-round. Had I opened my own framebuilding shop in Wisconsin, business would have definitely been seasonal.

Also, when Masi laid me off at the end of 1981 it was due to an overstock of unsold frames coinciding with a recession. It was not because of anything I had done, and it was not necessarily Masi’s doing either.

They were only too pleased to rent me space in their shop to build my own frames, as they also had a drop in income. This got me started back in my own business again, and I was able to resume building custom frames, something I had not done since leaving England in 1979.

Then when John Howard, ex-Olympic rider and winner of the first Ironman Triathlon approached me in 1983 to build frames under his own name, it gave me a contract to build five frames a week.

This brought in a steady income to supplement what I was already making from my custom frames. It enabled me to open my own framebuilding facility, along with my own paint shop.

The John Howard frame was a short lived project that only lasted a year. Again due to circumstances largely outside of my control, and of which I have outlined here in a previous article.

This left me scrambling to find a replacement to fill the void in my production capabilities. Once again fate had played a hand and out of that the Fuso was conceived.

The John Howard frame was always underpriced, and profit margins were small. It was competing head on with the Masi and Italian import frames, but was not an established brand at that time, so we had to produce and sell it for less.

With lessons learned from the John Howard frame, the Fuso came into being in 1984. The extreme luxuries like chrome plating were dispensed with, and the Fuso was a well-designed, well-built product with nice paint and graphics.

No longer having to split profits with a middle-man, I now had a frame that was a reasonable price and would compete favorably with the import frames.

The Fuso had a good run for almost ten years, when once again fate took a hand in the form of the Mountain Bike, people stopped buying road bikes. However, this time I did not rise to the challenge and re-invent myself or my business.

Maybe I had been knocked down one too many times. I was thoroughly burned out with the bike business, and no longer wanted to be a part of it.

If someone had offered me a job in the bike business, I would have considered it. But to run my own business again, subject to all the whims of the market and the consumer. No, thank you very much

Looking back, I have no regrets, but can't help but wonder what if I had landed that job with Trek back in 1980. Would they have treated me well enough that I stayed?

I might have retired by from some executive position with a large pension. On the other hand, I doubt if it would have been as satisfying as what I did do.

And is money the only consideration when a person looks back on what they have achieved? At some point we die, and money has little bearing on anything

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My Paint Curing Oven

When I went to work for Masi at the end of 1980, I immediately found that the level of paint finish they achieved on their frames was at a far higher standard than I had previously seen.

I had painted my own frames in England for a number of years before coming to the US in 1979. I knew how to handle a paint gun.

What I had not been exposed to was applying multiple clear coats to the frame, then sanding the surface with wet and dry sandpaper, to an absolute overall smooth surface, before applying a final overall clear coat.

Masi had two essential pieces of equipment that were needed to achieve this level of paint finish. A totally enclosed dust free paint booth and a paint curing oven.

The paint booth was a scaled down automotive booth, with a large electric fan that exhausted through the roof of the building. Replaceable filters caught the paint over-spray, and on the air inlet side of the booth, were special “Sticky” filters that caught dust as the air came through. Both inlet and exhaust filters were replaced every month or so.

Masi’s paint curing oven was no doubt shipped over from Italy along with all the other specialist bicycle manufacturing equipment when the Masi facility opened sometime in the 1970s.

The Imron paint we used had a chemical hardener added to it, and so would air dry “dust-free” at room temperature in ten or fifteen minutes. However, in order for the paint to be hard enough to sand, it would take days, even weeks to cure. A paint curing oven was therefore essential to the process.

When I set up my own facility in 1982, I needed this same paint equipment if I was to produce paint work to this same high standard. The paint booth was no problem as these are made up of standard sheet steel panels that bolt together. One can order a paint booth in any size of configuration.

I ordered one from a company in nearby Los Angeles. It was 12 foot square, (3.63 m.)  and totally enclosed as previously described. It was divided into a 7 ft. (2.13 m.) room where the frames were sprayed, and a 5 ft. (1.52 m.) room where frames hung waiting to be painted, and where they also hung after painting, waiting to ‘flash off,’ and become dust free.

Air flowed from back to front through both these two sections, keeping overspray from the newly painted frames.

The Paint oven was a whole different matter. I doubt any such piece of equipment, specifically for bicycle frames, was even made in the US. However, I did find a used bakers oven that I figured I could adapt and make it work. It was about 7 ft. tall, 8 ft. wide, and about 4 ft. deep. (2.13 m. x 2.43 m. x 1.21 m.)

The front was enclosed except for a small door where the bread and cakes were put in, and taken out. It was made of sheet steel panels, insulated with glass-fiber in between. I cut the whole front off with a hammer and cold chisel.

Inside was a rotating conveyer that carried the baked goods around the over as they baked. I had to remove and discard all this, and make hooks to hang 10 frames and forks as I remember.

I constructed two doors that split in the center, using 3 inch angle iron for the frame, sheet steel outside and inside with fiber-glass insulation between. I made the heavy duty hinges, and a special cam operated bolt system, to hold the door closed tight against a heat proof sealing strip.

The oven had large electric heating elements in the bottom, and a control panel on one end.  The temperature this oven could attain far exceeded that needed to cure paint. I set the temperature at 250 degrees Fahrenheit (121 C.)  The oven would take about 15 minutes to reach 250 F. then would shut off automatically. It would then take another 30 minutes to cool down.

A 45 minute bake would cure the paint to a degree that would normally take weeks to air dry. Also I believe the reason the paint has held up so well, on some of my frames over 30 years old, the paint was hard and thoroughly cured when the left my shop.  Air dried paint usually chips in the first year when the paint is soft and vulnerable.

Above is the only picture I could find of the oven.

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Success and Fate

Looking back on the United States part of my framebuilding career, although some of my success I created, fate also played a large role.

For example in 1980 I went for a job interview with Trek, in Wisconsin. I didn’t get the position, but later that same year I landed a job with Masi in Southern California.

When I eventually started my own business I was definitely in the right place. California, and in particular the southern part of that state, has a climate where one can ride a bike year round. Had I opened my own framebuilding shop in Wisconsin, business would have definitely been seasonal.

Also when Masi laid me off at the end of 1981 it was due to an overstock of unsold frames coinciding with a recession. It was not because of anything I had done, and it was not necessarily Masi’s doing either.

They were only too pleased to rent me space in their shop to build my own frames, as they also had a drop in income. This got me started back in my own business again, and I was able to resume building custom frames. Something I had not done since leaving England in 1979.

Then when John Howard, ex-Olympic rider and winner of the first Ironman Triathlon approached me in 1983 to build frames under his own name, it gave me a contract to build five frames a week.

This brought in a steady income to supplement what I was already making from my custom frames. It enabled me to open my own framebuilding facility, along with my own paint shop.

The John Howard frame was a short lived project that only lasted a year. Again due to circumstances largely outside of my control, and of which I have outlined in a previous article.

This left me scrambling to find a replacement to fill the void in my production capabilities. Once again fate had played a hand and out of that the Fuso was conceived.

The John Howard frame was always underpriced and profit margins were small. It was competing head on with the Masi and Italian import frames, but was not an established brand at that time, so we had to produce and sell it for less.

With lessons learned from the John Howard frame, the Fuso came into being in 1984. The extreme luxuries like chrome plating were dispensed with, and the Fuso was a well designed, well built product with nice paint and graphics.

No longer having to split profits with a middle man, I now had a frame that was a reasonable price and would compete favorably with the import frames.

The Fuso had a good run for almost ten years, when once again fate took a hand in the form of the Mountain Bike. People stopped buying road bikes. However, this time I did not rise to the challenge and re-invent myself or my business.

Maybe I had been knocked down one too many times. I was thoroughly burned out with the bike business, and no longer wanted to be a part of it.

If someone had offered me a job in the bike business, I would have considered it. But to run my own business again, subject to all the whims of the market and the consumer. No, thank you very much

Looking back I have no regrets, but can't help but wonder what if I had landed that job with Trek back in 1980. Would they have treated me well enough that I stayed?

I might be retired by now with a large pension from some executive position. On the other hand I doubt if it would have been as satisfying as what I did do.

And is money the only consideration when a person looks back on what they have achieved? At some point we die and money has little bearing on anything

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