Home Shop Strategy
By Brad Quartuccio
It looks daunting at first, but while there is a certainly a buy-in factor to having a completely outfitted home shop, over time the purchases pay for themselves through both direct hourly labor costs and the unquantifiable satisfaction of working on your own equipment. Beyond the basics (hammer, hacksaw, screwdrivers, etc) there are a handful of tools that are essential for basic repairs and adjustments. Purchasing what you can at the hardware store and buying one small tool per shop visit is one way to make the whole process that much less painful financially. Save the pricier purchases for opportune times of either cash on hand or a deal you can’t refuse and sooner than later you’ll find that you have a pretty stocked home shop.
Even more so than in other aspects of life, you get what you pay for when it comes to tools. Money spent on quality tools is rarely wasted, whereas cheap tools not only wear out faster but in some cases can actually damage the parts you’re trying to repair. The sky is the limit on both tool cost and depth of repairs—there is no shame in having to visit the shop from time to time for repairs as there is ultimately little reason to have the most expensive bike tools around at home, ex. thread taps and frame alignment gauges.