• I saw your post in the car thread and wondered what you'd be doing with the space. Having different uses for it sounds like a smart idea.

    I'm sure you know this, but avoid bike brands for generic tools. I use Bondhus Allen and Torx keys as they have been found to be very close to true-to-size. Pricey though, so perhaps Bondhus for yourself and Halfords for the others. For all the use they get, Silverline spanners and screwdrivers have been fine.

    For bike-specific tools I've been impressed with Cyclus. Their headset cup remover is a good example of the quality and thought they put into them: the slits are finished with a hole to stop it propagating and the tangs are flared at the end, so they will still reach the cup even when working on a short head tube. It's also a heavier gauge of tube than you normally find on these tools.

    I'd expect Cyclus tools to stand-up to heavy use from cack-handed users, such as you might find in a community workshop.

    Keen readers of this thread will already know that I'm not, generally, a fan of Park Tool so I won't bang-on about them again.

    I'd guess a torque wrench will be something a lot of your customers will need and if it were me, I'd get pre-set keys for the common, low range tasks (ie 4-7Nm) and a high range (covering 40-50Nm) wrench for cranks.

    A surface plate would be a nice touch for truing rotors and can be had off eBay for £25 pound-odd. Second-hand obviously, but they'd be good enough for the task.

  • Yeah that's the one. Started as a "let's build an epic man cave with lathes and shit" between 5 of us. But costs were insane so only way to justify it was to make it a business and not a place to faff in. Hence it ended up as big as it is!

    I used to like the pedros workshop stuff but haven't seen any in years so not sure what's happened to them. Bonduas make the Allen keys and other things like the small multi tools and I think screwdrivers for park. But your right, Bonduas make them closer to tolerance than they do for park lol.

    Prob gonna go with wiha for Allens, they do a nice set with handles for £25 and without for £15, very high quality and have a neat snap feature to hold bolts on end of the ball.

    Cycle specific for cutting, pressing, chasing and facing though. Only need thE multi press really now.

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