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came with both we were just filling orders as fast as we could the only thing we did do was if a dealer ordered more then one frame set we made sure they got all of the same fork design
I've a hutch frame that came original with a MCS fork. Is that possible? we are talking late 81/82
No unless it was a 24in. fork but then they built those frames too
So probably the shop stickered a MCS fork with hutch and put it in a hutch frame?
Maybe hutch didn't have any forks (for export it was) and they put mcs forks with the frame?
can't answer that just know they did not weld 20in. frames or forks for us now they did train alot of our welders because we had no way to train around us for what we did i also went there for training was really good still can remember a lot i still weld and still have what it takes
Who else made Hutch frames and when?
MCS was making frame parts for us after profile brake up but only parts where then shipped to us for welding in house.
MCS did machine bottom end tubes to fit bearings for cranks and other things they did for us for our frames. Pop also just remember before we brought our tubing polisher in house they use to do all of that for us witch meant every tube before being bent or welded was polished witch made our chrome frames look so nice
Also we did send welders their for training
So mcs just made parts for hutch and welded the cruiser f&f?
Profile, Thruster, Hutch, 24in MCS OH!!! also Thruster and MCS made the jr. and mini forgot about that we never made those in-house either
Mcs and Thruster made the junior and lil holeshot? Never in-house?
Only alum. version in house
The cruiser only by msc right?
Yes
But I've seen hutch frames with the typical MCS weld. So, are you sure MCS never welded Hutch frames? Also there are Hutch frames with a MCS slotted gusset behind the bottom bracket instead of the well know Hutch gusset plate. And what about the MCS made forks? The bend is different to the steering tube then the "real" Hutch forks.
MSC did all of the stamp work we needed witch means all flat metal parts where made by them including stamped brake plate witch also means the stamped pieces for the forks and some of the stuff was cheaper for us just to use there pieces instead of paying for redesign on small pieces we did not think people would pick up on these small changes
What's the story behind the frames with slotted MCS gusset behind the BB?
I've seen cruisers with such gusset and 20" frames!
That was the difference between Thruster stamping and mcs stamping that's all
We even tried to play that change of on another brake mounting location but that did not work
and where was that location then?
The slot that was in that plate
yea that's it we had a lot of questions that came in when we made this change and the sales people we had working for us instead of asking someone told dealers this so it made alot of people mad we even had to send out a press release on this to our dealers that is how i can remember this so well
and who welded those frames with that mcs gusset?
In-house
and there are cruisers with such gusset too, so they were weld by mcs?
Yes MCS did all of our stamp work by this time frame for us so they were shipping this stuff to us
What about the forks that seems to b welded by msc? They have another bend and the welds look 100% the same as MCS forks?
I've seen 24" forks with the MCS weld/bend and 20" too
Again i am almost 100% sure they did not weld forks for us pop can't remember but says pretty sure they did not. although POP sometimes took it upon himself sometimes to do things if he felt we were not doing our job for supply he was very much into his dealers making sure they got what they wanted even if it meant for us to work thru the night to make what ever he promised delivered he laughs about it now.
i've seen 20" forks with MCS welds??????
same welds like on the cruiser fork made by mcs.
we need a time machine ;-)
Yes also possible the mcs product you are seeing maybe too but mcs never did any of our 20in. stuff for us dad does not think though that thruster made any 24in for us only mcs did see how confusing this could get even for us but it has been along time it is fun tring to remember these things too though
the people we sent to mcs for training may be what you are looking at in our factory we had just welders that welded forks and that's it. It is possible that that person was one that was trained their. Pop did just tell me they did have the same welders we did. and all other welders where specific to what they welded except for our top welders witch did a little bit of everything
Who were the designers of the Hutch products?
The first frame was the only thing designed on my own with no help besides neighbour help to understand what I was looking for.
At age 13?
Yea at 13 I think with a already motocross back ground I knew the difference in the motocross bikes and handling differences that helped back in 1979 pop took us every weekend to race was pretty good back then won the Ponca city Nat'l in OK. On a borrowed motorcycle since I blew mine up in practice.
Yea I remember how I figured this out the bike I was riding at the time I knew what I did not like about it and my best friend still to this day dad was an engineer and showed me how to figure basic measurements out and what each thing would do for me I change it all else was a good guess.
You rode a Robinson, so the hutch is actually a modified Robinson?
Caught that did you I was going to say that decided to leave it out some pk ripper stuff I liked too
What did you use from the ripper?
To hard to remember exactly but I do remember the hole shots I would get with the pk but the steering of the Robinson
Longer front of the Robinson and the rake and shorter pk rear for good hole shot
Still not exactly the same I did modify some from there but that is what I started from.
When went the production to Japan and Taiwan? Was it all the production or just a part that was made overseas?
Over seas companies was all my dad handling that but does not remember who did what he thinks Taiwan was first with the Pro Raider (1984) then everything else Japan later but does not no time frame (somewhere in 1986).
I do know that No Trick Stars, Judge, Hollywood series, Pro Racer, cruiser (24), jr. or mini were ever built over seas by us.
I know for sure Trick Stars were made in Japan around 1986
They have a baseball logo in the serial = Japanese
not by us, we were the only ones to build the trick star, judge in house no one else did these
And how do you explain the baseball logo at the end of the serial number
I can't but i do know for sure when pop owned the company no trick stars were built over seas
What does your pop say about this?
something that was his baby the Trick Star. Him and Woody Itson were very tight.
Really, Japanese TS forks were made by Tange ! It's stamped in the steering tube and the Japanese frames have little differences with the US made ones.
I can't help on this one right now then I will have to go back and pull papers from that time frame Pops memory is not what it use to be either and like said this was mostly him I did mostly racing side
But still did not think we went over seas with this frame.
Pro Racers and Hollywoods were made in Japan too I've pics of such serials.
I will still have too check in to this for you not sure pop handled all over seas stuff. that stuff would come in from over seas go from container to 45ft ups tractor trailers at our doors and go right back out never had any of that stuff in our warehouse we would get like 10,000 in at a time and all leave right back with in two days Mom remembers this because that is what she was in charge of
I personally can't even remember putting any of these together although pop says I did for ads and things just could not have been very many.
When did Hutch started with serial numbers? Is there a date code in the serial numbers?
Don't know exact time frame I do know it was after we started making frames in house we were having a hard time keeping track of quality control so that is how we cam up with using no.
As far I know it was late 83 because 84 models started with serials
Sounds right I do remember having these meetings while we were at our Alco location.
About a stamping in the frame. Serial no. where grouped to production runs to try and keep an eye on if there was problem in production we could look at the product around that time frame too make sure no problems or if things started coming back in close serial no. groups but they where never recorded as particular time frames just so we could keep an eye on groups of production some where stamped with initials of the welder to make sure we did not have problem with any given welder. Anyway one of your forum letters mention some letters bad bob or something to this order Bad Bob was one of our best welders and had been with us since the beginning me and him use to get in a lot of trouble with hutch making things that were not authorized by pop but some stuff would end up in production. Hutch him and I were also big into cars one in particular pop bought a iroc z back in the day that was the car anyway he drove it home from the dealer had me and Bob pull the motor and re due with blower nitrous the whole works. Pop and Mom leave to head over seas for awhile big tour anyway before leaving he tells get it all together but don't start it until I get home anyway me and Bob think yea right we are going to do all this work and not start it That's going to happen so we did all the work and preceded to start it no way we were doing all that work and have to wait to here it run so it sounded good Bob even custom made all the exhaust. after running it we decided we needed to take it for a ride we get to the end of the dirt road noticed you have picture of our house at swan cove lane any way that road was a dirt road when we lived there so we get to end of road and Bob is yelling hit it so I did hit the nitrous well that tended to blow a hole in the top of one of the pistons need less to say me and him now think we are in big trouble witch we were because he knew the bottom end was not going to hold up to nitrous and he put it I wanted to blow it up before he would allow us to build a lower end to handle nitrous anyway he still mentions this every once in awhile as a joke now that I have kids (My son blew his first motorcycle up this past summer so as pop put it it's just the beginning)
Do you have info on what serials were used at what time?
The serial no. where never kept in a running order any where so what was the first no. all the way till the end there is no record that was saved on any of this I do know that it was not a consecutive running no. order we where aware and did not want year recognition.
what you think about the notes of Mr. Coasterbrake on the Hutch I.D. page of my site?
Note by Mr Coasterbrake from VBMX: There is no date-code with Hutch serial #'s. They are just random but sequencial numbers as dropouts were made/ordered. They were not necessarily used in any order, just "grabbed out of the box".
That said, from my experience being a dealer and my own frames, I have made this broad observation...
-- First batch of frames w/ serials seem to begin 123xxxx and are from late '83 production till about late '84.
-- Next is from then til mid/late 85 and seem to begin 064xxxx.
-- Last batch before going overseas seem to begin 08xxxxx.
A mail I received from Ryan Sullivan: I have a Hutch Pro-Star that we recieved end of '83 which would be for the year '84 release. My serial # is 0146649 and you state that time frame starts with 123xxxx
My thought on this mail: If Ryan is right, it seems there were frames with serials starting with 123xxxx and 014xxxx build in the same time period (83-84).
No records! This was some thing each welder would turn in at the end of the weekend that is how kept track also make sure welder was not to slow if he was we would move him to forks or handle bars or something smaller but again these no. were in a big 6ftx6ftx6ft bin and more was always added when it got low so you could have an early serial no. built near the end of Hutch we just did not use
them no. that way just for us to keep tracked of who was doing what that same end of week sheet would then go to my uncle who was in charge of sending the stuff out to plating or painting to make sure they all came back to us because we did find one of our chromers was keeping some and selling out back door too but what happened to those sheets after that who knows a mystery that will stay with hutch I guess.
Do you know there are frames with 2 serial numbers and serial numbers on the wrong side?
Yes welders not paying attention when grabbing what they needed like I said we even had some that went out with brake plates up side down or backwards any welder that made these mistakes were written up and moved to doing something else for awhile as punishment they were on piece work so that also lead to some of this working to fast.
Hutch was know for there quality (control) and why did hutch sell those miss made frames?
The ones with brake plates we caught most of them before they went out what we would do with these is cut the bracket out weld new one in and send that frame for painting. Any frames that had small issues we would fix and send them for painting as far as serial no. there were to many times this was happening so we had no choice but let the serial no. problem go plus we figured it was only an in-house used item and no meaning for the public we would let this go but we still deducted this problem from the welder to try and make them pay better attention.
Now we are talking about miss made frames. What about Pro Racers with lil holoshot dropouts and visa versa?
There were sometimes still things that slip though the cracks we also had some Pro Racer that made it out that had welded on foot placement on them from the Trick Star. Most of these problems came about when we had two different shifts working one of the things Bill Grove help fix for us.
Wow, were they sleeping, the welders, a Racer with stands for the TS?
Some days we would wonder.
More weird looking frame question. Expert 20" frame. Serial number 0642753, top tube length just over 18", Hutch engraved in the brake bridge. All look like it's a US made frame, but the seat stays are welded much higher then normal! Look a bit like the first Profile made Hutches, but this one is made later because it has a serial number
What the hell is that? Looks like a frame welded with left overs or so?
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