What have you fettled today?

[orienteer]

Found enough energy within to pressure wash the patio. Didn't get a round tuit last year.

Laid it when we had an extension built about 40 years ago, using 18" square red and beige slabs. By the end of each winter you can't distinguish the colours.

[drossall]

I need to have a spare parts audit at some point.  Maybe I could rope barakta into making one of her famous spreadsheets.

I've got a spreadsheet. But every now and again I look in another cupboard and have to update it

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Finally replaced the rim bent by a stupid driver some months ago and fitted the rebuilt dynowheel to my fixed. The interim dynowheel will be adjusted and returned to HK’s Roberts though she is unlikely to actually do much distance on it in future. Fitted the fixed with new front and rear tyres, after deflations in Thursday and Friday. Adjusted the front brake pads and front mudguard to suit the new rim width, along with a Rawflap pinched from my Frezoni as the fixed’s Rawflap was completely delaminated after not very long. Replaced the corroded Miche rear tracknuts with Runwell nuts. Hopefully they can cope with road salt better.

[rafletcher]

Replaced the split and repaired with duct tape and zip-ties length of copper pipe twixt stop vakve and outside tap. And then I dismantled the various bird feeders and gave them a good clean before they go away for the season.

[barakta]

I need to have a spare parts audit at some point.  Maybe I could rope barakta into making one of her famous spreadsheets.

You only have to ask 

[CAMRAMan]

Lots of tedious, little chores in advance of a house valuation on Tuesday. Only the dusting remains, but that will be put off until the very final second. The bucket and mop made a very rare appearance in the kitchen. My reward was cheese, tomato and pickle sandwiches, although they were spoiled by me skimping on the cheese and the, supposedly sweet, Lidl pickle being very tart.

[T42]

Banged my left shifter straight with the heel of my hand.  It got turned a bit when the bike fell over a while back.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Pulled the failed Royce BB from a friend’s Enigma. The wear to the chainstay and chainring bolts suggest he has been riding with it rubbing for quite a while. Realigned the slightly bent rear hanger. The chain and cassette are toast, as is the rear rim. Removed the superfluous crown race and added an extra 1” threadless headset spacer. Fitted a replacement middle ring from garage stock. There wasn’t an appropriate length BB in the garage stock, so that needs to be acquired.

Replaced a pair of brake pads on HK’s orange Trykit. Flintmined the tyres. The chain and cassette are well past needing replacement.

[Mrs Pingu]

Some magnetic door catches onto our new wardrobe. Somewhat complicated by the fact the screws that came with them were made of cheese. Got there eventually.

Swapped the studded tyres for some normal ones on the commuter bike.
Did think about putting a roller blind up in the kitchen but decided that was enough tuits used for one day.

[robgul]

New cleats (2 bolt variety) fitted to my touring shoes - lace-up type that you can also walk in - (the front clip bit being paper thin) and to a new pair of the shoes I use on my road bikes.

Just need to try and get the rather burred cleat bolts undone and fit new cleats on the old road shoes that will be demoted to wet weather riding.

[Feanor]

Some magnetic door catches onto our new wardrobe. Somewhat complicated by the fact the screws that came with them were made of cheese. Got there eventually.

As a general rule, any mounting hardware supplied with pretty much anything needs to go in the bin.
Don't even attempt to use it.

Go rummage in the boxes of Such Things in the garage and find some Proper Hardware which you have bought at some point in the past...

[rafletcher]

Chopped the remaining salvaged decking boards into kindling for next winter. Sharpened the secateurs. Noticed how little pruning I did last year as irs been so wet. Hey ho.

[Tim Hall]

First cut of the grass in the Upper Fifty Acres this year, followed by wrangling Very Fierce Brambles. I was wearing a T shaped shirt, so my arms look like I've been self harming.

[Mrs Pingu]

Some magnetic door catches onto our new wardrobe. Somewhat complicated by the fact the screws that came with them were made of cheese. Got there eventually.

As a general rule, any mounting hardware supplied with pretty much anything needs to go in the bin.
Don't even attempt to use it.

Go rummage in the boxes of Such Things in the garage and find some Proper Hardware which you have bought at some point in the past...

Entire story:
I got the 1st supplied screw 90% of way in before the head snapped off. I threw the rest of them in the bin and got my trusty box of actual wood screws. After using these it was suggested that these wood screws were preventing the catch from catching, so against my better judgement the crap screws were dug out of the bin, until the 3rd one snapped and we went back to the wood screws again.

Of course, if I'd bothered to read the reviews on Screwfix I would have seen the screws were made of cheese....

[robgul]

Some magnetic door catches onto our new wardrobe. Somewhat complicated by the fact the screws that came with them were made of cheese. Got there eventually.

As a general rule, any mounting hardware supplied with pretty much anything needs to go in the bin.
Don't even attempt to use it.

Go rummage in the boxes of Such Things in the garage and find some Proper Hardware which you have bought at some point in the past...

Entire story:
I got the 1st supplied screw 90% of way in before the head snapped off. I threw the rest of them in the bin and got my trusty box of actual wood screws. After using these it was suggested that these wood screws were preventing the catch from catching, so against my better judgement the crap screws were dug out of the bin, until the 3rd one snapped and we went back to the wood screws again.

Of course, if I'd bothered to read the reviews on Screwfix I would have seen the screws were made of cheese....

I've fixed those magetic catch things with hot glue in the past - worked a treat.

[Pingu]

Mrs P hasn't told you about the judicious washer placements...

[rogerzilla]

I unfettled the Moulton with the cracked rear forks.  I was going to put the frameset back together with a good series 2 rear fork but on this occasion the suspension block won't fit.  The rivet holes were all drilled by hand at the factory so you can never guarantee parts are interchangeable - it's like British manufacturing before Joseph Whitworth came along.  Generally, you have to keep rear forks and their block as a matched pair, which is an issue if you break one or the other.

[JefO]

Started making a support that will clamp on the (shimmed) 23.4mm seat post of my 1950s road bike.

It will eventually add support to a fairly large saddle bag, which will hold my raincoat (unless it is raining), and some rear lights.

This support will possibly only be used for the Dunwich Dynamo.

Progress was slow, as I made the job fairly complex. I used 6mm thick aluminium, drilling and filing a 23.4mm diameter hole on the fore & aft centre line, and put two 3.2mm holes (aiming to keep the drill bit central within the 6mm thickness) across the 45mm width of the sheet.

I then tapped the holes to M4 for half of the width, before drilling the other half out to 4.5mm, for bolt shaft clearance.

Finally I hacksawed along the fore & aft centre line, then dressed the cut edges.

Used two M4 bolts to secure the two halves of the clamp onto the seat post.   

[TimC]

My ex-Mrs’ Bianchi Infinito, here for its annual fettle. Despite the dreadful Veloce groupset and the dire Fulcrum 7 cast-iron wheels, it’s still a thing of beauty…

[JefO]

Started making a support that will clamp on the (shimmed) 23.4mm seat post of my 1950s road bike.

It will eventually add support to a fairly large saddle bag, which will hold my raincoat (unless it is raining), and some rear lights.

This support will possibly only be used for the Dunwich Dynamo.

Progress was slow, as I made the job fairly complex. I used 6mm thick aluminium, drilling and filing a 23.4mm diameter hole on the fore & aft centre line, and put two 3.2mm holes (aiming to keep the drill bit central within the 6mm thickness) across the 45mm width of the sheet.

I then tapped the holes to M4 for half of the width, before drilling the other half out to 4.5mm, for bolt shaft clearance.

Finally I hacksawed along the fore & aft centre line, then dressed the cut edges.

Used two M4 bolts to secure the two halves of the clamp onto the seat post.

Carrying on from yesterday...

Made a clamping plate,
1) cut roughly to size
2) filed edges square and took off sharp corners
3) calculated placement of the clamping bolt holes in seat post clamp and clamping plate
Made the longeron bars
4) Cut roughly to length some aluminium tubes
5) Bent them to fit in clamp
Clamped up the seat post clamp and the longeron bar clamp, with the tubes in place
Bent the longeron tubes until it looked about right.
Made a cross piece and cut the longeron tubes to required length
Made a corner joiner from mild steel rod.
Used a 5mm Allen key as the other side corner joiner (one of the items from the tool kit)
Cut clamping bolts to length
Attached bag to cross piece.

[Kim]

On a similar theme, last week's fettle was a bracket to make use of:

a) the gap under the seat afforded by the 'seat brackets for shorter riders'
b) two braze-ons on the, erm, 'seat tube', intended for a bottle cage adaptor designed for use with the mesh seat, which in my case I have not got.







Why pay HPVelotechnik prices when you can get a bit of aluminimum U-channel and fill it with drillium^[1]?

Reasonably pleased with the result, shitty paint job notwithstanding.  (An open tin of Hammerite Ultima being available and less of a pain than spray paint.)

The space between seat brackets is just enough for the Gorilla Cage, which means you can't slide it off the mounting cleats without either unbolting the bracket or removing the seat, unfortunately.  It's a decent place to keep a jacket, as it's out of the splatter zone^[2] and easy to get at even with panniers attached.

The water bottle isn't really accessible while riding (the adaptor mentioned above mounts them upside down and splayed outwards), but I don't care as there's a more accessible one on the derailleur post, and my preferred solution for touring is a water bag on the rear rack with the hydration hose.  (That modified bottle mostly gets used on the Red Baron - I was trying it here to see if it would work.)  This is a bit more aero, anyway.


_{[1] My cheap Chinese hole saw wasn't really up to the job of whatever alloy this is, but I'd started so I finished.
[2] On the previous bike I'd strap it under the frame between the fork and the lowrider rack, but the new geometry doesn't lend itself to that.}

[Kim]

And this week's fettle was a further adventure in voodoo ergonomics:



That's a fibreglass moulding of the top part of the old-style HPVelotechnik seat (which doesn't fit the mountings on this bike), to cover a massive hole^[1] in the upper part of the new 'Bodylink' seat which was designed for someone with a very different spine and/or pedalling technique than me.  By covering the hole (there's a shallow channel containing a piece of closed-cell foam under the gaffer tape) I get something solid to press against with my shoulders that doesn't result in undue pressure on C5-C7 (which one depending on how the seat is adjusted).

I wouldn't say it was entirely 'comfortable', but it's better than the Sun mousemat and  doesn't seem to be causing neck pain, at least.


_{[1] Just visible in the second photo above}

[JefO]

Excellent!

[jsabine]

Started making a support that will clamp on the (shimmed) 23.4mm seat post of my 1950s road bike.

It will eventually add support to a fairly large saddle bag, which will hold my raincoat (unless it is raining), and some rear lights.

This support will possibly only be used for the Dunwich Dynamo.

Progress was slow [...]

Carrying on from yesterday... [...]

Wouldn't it have been easier to buy a smaller raincoat?

[JefO]

Started making a support that will clamp on the (shimmed) 23.4mm seat post of my 1950s road bike.

It will eventually add support to a fairly large saddle bag, which will hold my raincoat (unless it is raining), and some rear lights.

This support will possibly only be used for the Dunwich Dynamo.

Progress was slow [...]

Carrying on from yesterday... [...]

Wouldn't it have been easier to buy a smaller raincoat?

Lol    yep!

Sometimes it is nice to do stuff BECAUSE it is difficult, just to stop your skills from evaporating.

The raincoat is the smallest I could find. The bag is smaller than it looks in the photos. The important part is the 5 rear lights. On old frames with very thin seat stays finding safe homes for an array of lights is not easy! The Dunwich Dynamo will be 24hours of riding for me. When we get to the settled weather of late summer, I will remove both the black bag and the rack that supports it, and the dynamo front wheel and dynamo front light.