What have you fettled today?

[BrianI]

An ingrowing toenail.  It was a bit nippy!   

[tiermat]

Stripped, cleaned and greased the front end of the Inbred. I have only had it nearly 3 years, noticed an intermittant creaking noise this time last year and it hasn't been serviced since I built it! Dug loads of black grease and dirt out of the headset and bearings. Runs much smoother and quieter now!

[Deano]

Halfway through servicing my Eggbeater pedals, I realised I have the wrong bearings.

Off to work out which ones I actually need...

[phantasmagoriana]

Cleaned the not-Tifosi a bit in preparation for tomorrow's FNRttC. I didn't think it was possible for a cassette and chain to get that dirty after only a month's use!

Also, having looked at the weather forecast (very much hoping it's correct) I de-fettled the mudguards, except the little bit of raceblade that goes in front of the rear brake - I can't get that bit off, so it'll have to stay.

Was going to retape the bars too, but CBA.

[Kim]

Also, having looked at the weather forecast (very much hoping it's correct) I de-fettled the mudguards, except the little bit of raceblade that goes in front of the rear brake - I can't get that bit off, so it'll have to stay.

I'm reasonably sure that my non-attendance on medical grounds will cancel out your lack of mudguards, weather wise. 

[Dave_C]

Just fitted B&M dynamo lights to my Ice B2 for this Saturday's Southern Uplands 400. Hoping the dynamo wheel is ready on Friday night!

[hulver]

Tube on the front of my commuting bike. As I'd recently changed the tyres, I assumed that I must have done something to the tube. A long cut, on the side facing the rim. Very weird. Patched in a couple of places, but the first patch exploded when I pumped the tyre back up.

I took that off, and put another (slightly smaller) patch one. That seemed to hold, but after 5 minutes the tyre was flat again. When I examined the tube again the cut had extended out from under the patch. That tube was no good, into the bin it went.

Last spare tube now in the tyre, I hope it holds and it's not something on the rim that was causing the problem. I ran my fingers along it, but it seemed ok.

[interzen]

Fitted the new USBWerk and appropriate USB cableage to the Croix de Fer, where it will stay. There may be some positional fettling to accomodate the straps of the new framebag (when it arrives) but for all practical purposes its staying put.

The 'missing' USBWerk, which miraculously turned up last night (under the sofa, where I'm pretty sure I looked on several occasions), will resume its place on whichever of the 29ers happens to have the dynamo wheel in it.

[interzen]

I've just finished fettling the two Genesis MTBs into rideable condition after picking them up from the LBS this morning.

The Fortitude is now rocking a 100mm, non-offset Pugsley fork which, unlike the Genesis fork they replaced, will allow a 6-bolt disc hub to rotate freely without gouging chunks out of the fork leg. In fact, there's a good 10mm clearance betwixt rotor bolts and fork The High Latitude now has a Salsa Fargo fork which is, quite honestly, the epitome of awesomeness even if it doesn't have their bad-ass chilli pepper logo on it.

All I need to do now is get a pair of pedals for the Fortitude, as I shifted the scabby old ATAC Aliums onto Pugsley and the High Latitude is currently wearing the baked soot ATACs.

[Kim]

I've populated the final three alerter boards with all the SMD passives.  Need a rest before I do any more.

[clarion]

I've populated the final three alerter boards with all the SMD passives.  Need a rest before I do any more.

*nods sagely as if he knows what on earth this means*

[interzen]

I've populated the final three alerter boards with all the SMD passives.  Need a rest before I do any more.

*nods sagely as if he knows what on earth this means*

Eyestrain and burnt fingers, more than likely.

[Kim]

Resistors and capacitors small enough to inhale (you can forget about finding them on the carpet), and therefore a job best suited to robots.  Hand-soldering them requires tweezers, a steady hand and an unreasonable amount of faith in surface tension, but isn't actually that difficult once you get the hang of it.

Once you get into a rhythm it's actually quicker than through-hole stuff, as you're not flipping the board over or trimming leads.


ETA: Halfway through the fiddly-bastard semiconductors now.  Only one TSSOP thankfully:  0.65mm pin pitch is my sanity limit.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Adjusted for more power from the nastiest-designed (but nicely manufactured) cantilever ever made. Swapped pads and tweaked a sidepull brake and removed a cycle-computer. More fettling planned for tomorrow.

[interzen]

NOT replaced the broken Campag rear mech cable adjuster on HK's Moulton. Campag has changed the adjuster thread between 8/9sp mechs and 10sp mechs. What bastard offspring of an Italian engineer thought that was the right thing to do?

Probably someone who is related to the bastard offspring of a Japanese engineer who decided to do away with barrel adjusters completely on newer Shimano MTB mechs.

[Kim]

Probably someone who is related to the bastard offspring of a Japanese engineer who decided to do away with barrel adjusters completely on newer Shimano MTB mechs.

ObGrr:  Grr.

[madcow]

Cleaned and dusted my Bob Jackson tourer and fitted the Carradice qr rack in preparation for a ride tomorrow. If it rides o.k then I have a rideable bike with mudguards available whilst I fettle the drivetrain on my Sabbath .
Also cut a scrap Open Pro rim (pulled through at spoke eyelet) off an Ultegra cassette hub, cleaned and greased the bearings to see if the cones or bearing housing were worn. All looked O.K so re-assembled with grease (steel balls were renewed just before rim was borked) and will get the hub rebuilt into another Open pro rim.

[Kim]

Finished (other than a few of the white connectors, of which I have annoyingly run out)!


_{(The one bottom right is not like the others - buggy prototype with bodge wire and incorrect mounting holes.  Schnozzel valve adaptor for scale.)}

Today's three pass the no-magic-smoke-escapes, voltages-are-sane and boots-up-and-detects-the-detectable-hardware tests.  Will test them more thoroughly when I've had some sleep.

The enclosures have disappeared into a Royal Mail black hole, which is probably for the best (else I'd be tempted to drill holes in things), and I don't really have the concentration to do any more work on the software (basically works, need a couple more features added, and some convenience stuff for deploying it to multiple units without hand-editing things).

[Torslanda]

Tube on the front of my commuting bike. As I'd recently changed the tyres, I assumed that I must have done something to the tube. A long cut, on the side facing the rim. Very weird. Patched in a couple of places, but the first patch exploded when I pumped the tyre back up.

I took that off, and put another (slightly smaller) patch one. That seemed to hold, but after 5 minutes the tyre was flat again. When I examined the tube again the cut had extended out from under the patch. That tube was no good, into the bin it went.

Last spare tube now in the tyre, I hope it holds and it's not something on the rim that was causing the problem. I ran my fingers along it, but it seemed ok.

Sounds like a rim tape problem. Possibly allowing the tube to hernia into a spoke hole?

Caught me out more than once.

[Paul]

Adjusted for more power from the nastiest-designed (but nicely manufactured) cantilever ever made.

Which ones, out of interest?

[Vince]

Swapped out the sproingy seat pin from the CdF replacing it for one that was originally supplied on the Bianchi.

Reason? The circlips on the pivots were wearing holes in my shorts! Also the replacement is black which fits the CdF colour scheme.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Adjusted for more power from the nastiest-designed (but nicely manufactured) cantilever ever made.

Which ones, out of interest?

Haven't found a photo online after a quick look. Cold-forged Dia Compe short-arm cantilevers with a double-ended straddle cable (no pinch bolt), so difficult to adjust the straddle cable length for extra power. The straddle carrier was a roller, so couldn't offset the carrier to balance arm movement. No vertical adjustment for the brake pads, just orbital angular adjustment controlled by a single 10mm nut and no way of holding the rest of it with a tool. No spring tension adjustment and only single holes on the braze-ons.

[Tim Hall]

New BB in the pink magenta bike, ready for a jaunt to Paris at the end of the week.  #excited

On Thursday at Scouts we made vortex cannons. Cardboard boxes blagged from work, parcel tape ditto, bin liners.

Assemble box, leaving one end open. Cut circle in closed end. Tape bin liner over open end.  Waft, at speed, air using firmly held bin liner. Shoot paper cups over. Blast dandelion clocks to bits.

In the absence of smoke machine we burnt rolled up cardboard off cuts and filled the boxes with smoke. Blam! Smoke rings zooming down the Scout hut.

$Random_Scout: "We make some pretty nifty gadgets".

[Gattopardo]

Tighten the crank on the kona single speed.  They were a little loose....

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Replaced some gear cable casing, trued some wheels, replaced a front tyre and a tube on different wheels, replaced a front skewer and fitted a light bracket. Replaced a gear cable on a friend's bike.