What have you fettled today?

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Used my new Dormer M6 bit to drill 12mm into steel plates then used new Dormer tap to thread the holes.

The plates will be bases for a pair of fine old Texan industrial rig lights I am repurposing.  They are massively made of cast iron and brass, modern ones are boring grey polycarbonate.

[Mrs Pingu]

I was going to spend the morning bodging my front mudguard, but then I googled and came up with this place suggesting Sheldon fender nuts and other similar goodies, so I put that off until said goodies arrive in the post.

The home purging continues. I have just taken an ancient pillow (prolly a cast off from when I moved out of my parents) and used it to plump up 3 cushions on the sofa. And didn't even get as far as the duvet I was originally planning to do that with. At least there's a bit more room in the loft cupboard now. I noticed we still have a cheapo Sainsbo's duvet BNIB from when Mojo was having his bladder issues and kept peeing on the bed. I wonder if some charidee would take that off my paws.
My dose is all sneezy dow.

[Kim]

Fettled the rear rack and motor wheel back onto the trike, now that I've finished borrowing it for the racing season^[1].

Disconnected the track rods and released the schmoo from the right side headset, which was as notchy as a very notchy thing.  Impressively the replacement cartridge bearings are merely expensive rather than unobtanium, so that should be a relatively painless fix.

And then emailed ICE about some replacement track rods, as they've got play in them.  Which has been on my to-do list since some time before barakta stopped riding due to hip pain.


_{[1] Achieved a respectable 2nd place in Multitrack.}

[citoyen]

Some beer.

Nothing special, just a homebrew kit - Woodforde's Wherry, picked up from Wilko for £20* and beefed up with 500g extra DME for enhanced boozification. I suspect I didn't do a very good job of mixing it** because I measured the OG at 1045, which is a bit lower than expected, but I guess that means I'll be able to pretend the finished result is less boozaholic than it really is and therefore get away with drinking more of it. That's how it works, right?


*works out at 50p a pint! (as long as you disregard associated production costs)

**my long stirring spoon is awol and I don't have anything else suitable for reaching all the way down into the tub. I shall have to adopt the practice used by some other homebrew kit enthusiasts of using a paddle mixer for this purpose - which also does a good job of aerating the wort

[T42]

Replaced the washer in the union between hose and tank tap in my workshop butane heater, for the first time in >25 years.  It was down to around half the thickth of the new one and allowed a trivial spurt of gas out when I turned the tap on.  I think I'm supposed to change it every 5 years, along with the hose.

[De Sisti]

Replaced gear cable on Campag Centaur front left lever.

[Paul]

I've borrowed a friend's mtb so I could take the boys on a couple of runs (Sherwood Pines and Cannock Chase). The price of the loan is making it ridable.

The front tyre was flat. That'll be the 1/2" thorn in it. No: your slime (which has nicely coated the inside of the tyre like hard, dried snot) will not work if you leave the thorn in.

The front mech doesn't move. That'll be the accumulated dirt. If you don't have mudguards (and even if you do) and you don't clean it sometimes, that's what happens.

That clicking noise is the headset. If you can hear that, then it needs adjusting. Or, probably, given everything else, by this point, replacing.

Those saddle rails should be straight.

I've got the bike ridable. Then, yesterday evening, the school contacted me to say that Louis has to self isolate for 14 days, so the ride's off anyway!

 

[Paul]

I may have worked out why the saddle rails were bent: the top part of the saddle clamp, which has the word “front” on it with an arrow showing which way it should be fitted, had been fitted backwards.
 

So instead of the rails being clamped at the same point top and bottom they were subject to an effective bending force.

Oh, and the springs on the front qr skewer were both on the non-drive side.

It seems as though every bit of the bike I look at has something broken or wrong or out of whack. It’s like the bike you give to an apprentice for a final exam.

[robgul]

I may have worked out why the saddle rails were bent: the top part of the saddle clamp, which has the word “front” on it with an arrow showing which way it should be fitted, had been fitted backwards.
 

So instead of the rails being clamped at the same point top and bottom they were subject to an effective bending force.

Oh, and the springs on the front qr skewer were both on the non-drive side.

It seems as though every bit of the bike I look at has something broken or wrong or out of whack. It’s like the bike you give to an apprentice for a final exam.

Nah, just back from a service at Halfrodsd 

[Kim]

The front tyre was flat. That'll be the 1/2" thorn in it. No: your slime (which has nicely coated the inside of the tyre like hard, dried snot) will not work if you leave the thorn in.

Sometimes the snot works better if you do leave the thorn in.  But pull it out when you finish the ride...   

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Completing a platform for the new freezer.  Mrs A cannot reach the lower drawer without getting a dizzy spell and so asked me to raise it to an agreed height.

Having built the carcass, Mrs A informed me she thought she might have difficulty getting stuff out of the top drawer and it might fall on her.   It'll considerably lower than our fridge/freezer!

Tomorrow, having at last got the bits together, I shall replace the drive train of my tourer as it is totally worn out. 

[rogerzilla]

The small Woden vice has had its first coat of paint.  Second coat at 4.30, then it can sit around to cure for a few weeks before I reassemble it.  It looks pretty good.  Takes a lot of masking-up.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Replaced all the pulley wheels and cogs on the tourer. I've upped the tooth count on the outer rings from 32 to 36 and 44 to 48. Sadly, post Brexit, I'll not be doing loaded touring very often so I can gear higher.

[T42]

Put a poor unused road bike on the turbo in the cellar for MrsT, which involved swapping the "nasty narrow hard" saddle for a thing about a foot wide with around 3" of gel in it and putting a gel cover on top of that, swapping the SPDs for flat pedals and mounting a lectern made out of my old aerobars.  Also sacrificed the shooting-board I was making to provide a boarding platorm.

MrsT is very not a cyclist. She was doing 20k runs before lockdown, though.

[rogerzilla]

Reassembled vice but it was very stiff.  Slides perfectly easily without the nut in place.  Fitted nut to screw and found nut was drilled off-centre and at a skew.  1950s British manufacturing was just as shite as it was in the 70s.  This explains why, when I was given the vice, the nut's retaining bolt was loosened several turns.  This was so the nut could align itself (it works nicely without the bolt).

Will seek out a replacement nut, or maybe some other solution involving shims.

EDIT: Retap retaining bolt hole to nearest metric size and use a cap head allen bolt, I reckon.  The head should be small enough to allow the nut to sit where the screw needs it to be.

[Feanor]

The strong winds of the last 2 days had brought down some old trees in the unmanaged woodlands near here.

This blocked some of the paths which I use as running routes, so I have just fettled sections out of the fallen trees with a chainsaw, thus restoring the paths to a working state.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Completed the work on the tourer by fitting the new chain.  Normally I just measure it up against the old one and chop some links out but having upped the tooth count I thought I had better start over. I found this excellent Park tools guide* which saves a lot of time and showed that unless the old chain had stretched an awful lot it was too long.  Now the 21 year old steed is nearly good as new.
 
Of course it was raining when I finished so shakedown rides will probably be Tuesday.


*wish I'd a workshop like that..

[citoyen]

More like what have I *not* fettled today...

Tried to refit a tubeless tyre but the feckin’ valve switch on my Airstore pump is broken and I just couldn’t get the tyre to seat properly, so after much swearing, ended up having to put a tube in.

Also tried to remove the cassette for thorough cleaning but the feckin’ chain whip broke. Stupid piece of shit. It was only a cheap one anyway but now I’m without even a cheap shit chain whip. (Well, I do have a decent quality chain whip but it’s for singlespeed sprockets and won’t fit on an 11 speed cassette.)

Also wanted to remove the disc rotor (as much to get access to the hub as to clean the rotor itself) but it seems I don’t have the correct size torx driver.

:facepalm

[Tim Hall]

Took the bathroom door off its hinges, laid it on my WorkMate and painted it white. With a roller. Tis witchcraft I tell you. 

(Doesn't look too bad, although "touch dry in two hours" is a Big Fat Lie).


Also fettled some flour, lard, water (hot) and minced pork into pork pies. These are resting in my account fridge until I cook them tomorrow.

[rafletcher]

More like what have I *not* fettled today...

Tried to refit a tubeless tyre but the feckin’ valve switch on my Airstore pump is broken and I just couldn’t get the tyre to seat properly, so after much swearing, ended up having to put a tube in.

Also tried to remove the cassette for thorough cleaning but the feckin’ chain whip broke. Stupid piece of shit. It was only a cheap one anyway but now I’m without even a cheap shit chain whip. (Well, I do have a decent quality chain whip but it’s for singlespeed sprockets and won’t fit on an 11 speed cassette.)

Also wanted to remove the disc rotor (as much to get access to the hub as to clean the rotor itself) but it seems I don’t have the correct size torx driver.

:facepalm

Re the tyre: Now you’ve got the bead seated with the tube, deflate, and just pop one side off to remove the tube and fit your tubeless valve. With luck only having to seat one bead should be doable.

I also failed in fettling. Went to fit the Garmin Vector 3 pedals. Ah, you need a pedal spanner, which I no longer have as all my other pedals can be fitted with Allen keys. Still, I made a nice profit when I sold mine as it was a genuine 80’s Campag one. New Park Tools pedal spanner on its way.

Then I thought I’d fit the Taiwanese copy of a P2M spider power meter to my Rotor chainset. I even have the right tool for removing the spider nut,  but a) it’s done up bastard tight and locktited, and I don’t know what thread it is. I’ll take it and the tool to my LBS and let them sort it.

Still, had a bit of a sort out and found things to sell.

[Paul]

Also fettled some flour, lard, water (hot) and minced pork into pork pies. These are resting in my account fridge until I cook them tomorrow.

Nice fettling. I plan to make pork pies one of these days.

[hellymedic]

Friday night, David decided to route 50 metres of Cat 6 cable from the router in his study to a shed at the far end of the garden.
He'll be streaming from his telescope to National Astronomy Week and Wifi is flaky.
Learned to hard way about the twisting inherent in coils. (I think I knew about this but D had already unpacked the cable.)
Spent a merry few hours untwisiting tangles...

[Mrs Pingu]

Fettled:
mudguard nut onto the Roberts to stop the fitting destroying the headset seal. If only all bike fettling was so quick and swear free! See https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=115981.msg2553627#msg2553627 for photies.
Dribbled some silicone oil on some zips of travel bags in the loft in the hope they might still work when we're able to go places again.

Purged:
made a pile of bedding etc to go to charidee in the loft.  ZOMG, can actually close the bedding cupboard now!
Did a major slash and burn of my jewellery pile and made a box to also go to charidee. There's a lot of nice stuff in there but I can't wear it all.

Tidied:
swept up the latest pile of crumbly bits in the loft. Hoovered the carpeted bits.

Reused:
unpicked an old duvet. Used the filling to stuff another of the sofa back cushions to something approaching supportive.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Friday night, David decided to route 50 metres of Cat 6 cable from the router in his study to a shed at the far end of the garden.
He'll be streaming from his telescope to National Astronomy Week and Wifi is flaky.
Learned to hard way about the twisting inherent in coils. (I think I knew about this but D had already unpacked the cable.)
Spent a merry few hours untwisiting tangles...

Was watching experts installing a false ceiling hung by wires a few years ago.  ISTR they'd untwist the coils by sticking the wire into the chuck of an electric drill they ran while pulling it out. 

[offcumden]

Was watching experts installing a false ceiling hung by wires a few years ago.  ISTR they'd untwist the coils by sticking the wire into the chuck of an electric drill they ran while pulling it out.

Ingenious - but perhaps best left to the experts.  Get it wrong and you might end up with a really knotty problem