Author Topic: What have you fettled today? (Read 2161444 times)

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #13925 on:** 04 July, 2019, 10:39:37 pm »

Riding home in the dusk, noticed my headlight was shining way above horizontal. Leveled it, tightened its retaining bolt and – the proper fettling – increased the tension on the multitool I keep on that bike, so the allen keys stay in place rather than flopping around.

Kim · « **Reply #13926 on:** 04 July, 2019, 10:40:42 pm »

Swapped the pedals on the Baron so I don't have to Look every time I clip in.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #13927 on:** 04 July, 2019, 11:00:18 pm »

Quote from: Kim on 04 July, 2019, 10:40:42 pm

Swapped the pedals on the Baron so I don't have to Look every time I clip in.

Did it take a long Time?

Kim · « **Reply #13928 on:** 04 July, 2019, 11:09:45 pm »

Quote from: Cudzoziemiec on 04 July, 2019, 11:00:18 pm

Quote from: Kim on 04 July, 2019, 10:40:42 pm
Swapped the pedals on the Baron so I don't have to Look every time I clip in.
Did it take a long Time?

Not once I realised I was being a complete spud about which way to turn.

Gattopardo · « **Reply #13929 on:** 06 July, 2019, 12:28:54 pm »

Final bits of cleaning rear cogs, front mech and more rusty bits will be electrolysed to see if they derust.

T42 · « **Reply #13930 on:** 06 July, 2019, 01:34:57 pm »

Steeled myself & took the motor unit off the drum of my workshop vacuum to observe that yes, the filter bag that has lasted through thick and thin for the last 25 years is indeed buggered. Now need to cut up Hooooover bags and make a new one. Or buy a new vacuum.

LittleWheelsandBig · « **Reply #13931 on:** 06 July, 2019, 02:51:26 pm »

Managed to get one pedal off HK's MTB commuter to pack it into the CTC bag for this morning's flight. I think the other pedal must wait until I can alternately apply a little penetrating oil and heat.

Her bike survived the flight mostly unscathed, once retrieved. The Al chainguard on my Brompton became a 3D sine wave. It'll be mostly straightened once I get home.

T42 · « **Reply #13932 on:** 07 July, 2019, 10:01:04 am »

Sharpened and reset the pivots of two pairs of scissors.

Took shop vacuum apart, blasted motor out with compressed air, removed dogs' hair that had got past the filters (tawny hair at that, which means it had been in there since the early 90s when we had Leonbergs), reassembled with new filter bag & tried it. It still makes the same horrible intermittent screech, which rather suggests a duff bearing. No harm to it, it was an el cheapo - as was my bandsaw that croaked a couple of years back after serving for a similar length of time.

El cheapos aren't what they used to be.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #13933 on:** 07 July, 2019, 08:58:24 pm »

My most arduous and fiddly fettling for a long while: sewed my RRTY badge on to my Carradice! Finished over two hours ago and my hand is still a bit red.

Jakob W · « **Reply #13934 on:** 07 July, 2019, 09:16:44 pm »

I've broken needles on their cotton duck before; though with a chunky needle and a solid thimble I quite enjoy sewing patches on in front of the telly of an evening.

bludger · « **Reply #13935 on:** 07 July, 2019, 09:18:27 pm »

My weapon of choice is my dad's sailmaking kit; leatherwork needles and a sailmaker's palm, which is terrific for driving needles through the most stubborn of material.

T42 · « **Reply #13936 on:** 08 July, 2019, 07:58:59 am »

I made myself [a poor imitation of] one of those around 50 years ago. The hardest part was sewing it together.

Triangular leatherworking needles made a big difference in leather, but I reckon they'd cut duck.

Jakob W · « **Reply #13937 on:** 08 July, 2019, 06:37:42 pm »

Quote from: bludger on 07 July, 2019, 09:18:27 pm

My weapon of choice is my dad's sailmaking kit; leatherwork needles and a sailmaker's palm, which is terrific for driving needles through the most stubborn of material.

Huh - file under 'things you never knew existed but now you want'...

I've also heard good things about the Speedy Stitcher, which is a sort of hand-held awl-cum-sewing machine used by sailmakers.

T42 · « **Reply #13938 on:** 12 July, 2019, 04:09:01 pm »

Last week I recovered an 18-year-old Miele from the cellar, removed the rotted dust bag (model no longer available) and jimmied the bag detector: the thing still sucks like a bastard so I whisked it off to the workshop and cleaned it up. Today I adapted a fitting for the hose to fit the drum of my old Friom workshop vac (whose motor with the duff bearing I discarded) and hooked it up, so that now the Miele sucks air out of the drum, which acts as dust collector. The loss of suction is negligible but since the Miele is sucking through two filters and the Friom's dust bag I can probably improve it a bit by losing the Friom filter, then I'm going to put the two on a castored base and they can live out their lives (emotional sniff) usefully.

bludger · « **Reply #13939 on:** 12 July, 2019, 04:36:08 pm »

Repaired some tyres. Sewed one up with a gash in it, applied vulcanising cement to the inside, stuck a patch on, clamped it fort an hour or two, a tad more VC on the outside part. Theoretically this is fine to use tubeless... Not been that brave yet but will happily ride it tubed.

Jurek · « **Reply #13940 on:** 13 July, 2019, 11:51:11 am »

Thursday, I used a Japanese water stone to restore a keen edge to my Damascus steel kitchen knife, while my sister was here.
She was wide-eyed with surprise when, having finished and rinsed the grit from the blade, I picked up a piece of A4 paper and, with a deft flick of the wrist, cleft the paper in twain using the knife.

Today, I fettled some fox shit from my lawn.
Using the contents of a can of pipe freezing spray, to make the shit more *ahem* manageable.

ElyDave · « **Reply #13941 on:** 13 July, 2019, 01:03:38 pm »

I found something similar a few days ago, plastic disposable gloves make it a more palatable job.

are japanese water stones all they're cracked up to be? I've got a very satisfactory edge on my hatchet with a file, and now maintained with a lawnmower blade sharpening stone

Jurek · « **Reply #13942 on:** 13 July, 2019, 01:06:46 pm »

Having deployed the freezer spray, you are dealing with a solid, as opposed to a semi-solid material, the former of which leaves a garden trowel unmarked.

Water stones are definitely better than oil stones - which is what I deployed previously.

ElyDave · « **Reply #13943 on:** 14 July, 2019, 04:14:08 pm »

Lawnmower, height adjuster broke last week. My lawn has looked a bit avante-garde as I was trying to keep the height fairly even. A £6 plastic part and all sorted. For a 15 year old lawnmower it's doing reasonably well.

bludger · « **Reply #13944 on:** 14 July, 2019, 07:28:46 pm »

I had a SPD pedal which was being unbearably stiff so I disassembled it, extracted the spindle and bearings, gave it a thorough GT85ing with rags and cotton buds, then greased the internals and reassembled it. It now spins like an excitable small dog. Hopefully it stays that way!

orienteer · « **Reply #13945 on:** 14 July, 2019, 08:31:24 pm »

Let's hope it doesn't yap or try to hump your leg

robgul · « **Reply #13946 on:** 14 July, 2019, 08:52:43 pm »

I improved the design of the mounting plate I had fabricated to get the Ortlieb saddle-bag mount to fit a Brooks saddle - when I say improved, all I really did was to radius the rear corners of rectangular plates I had already made with a jig-saw to improve the appearance and make it easier to tuck the Brooks cover between the rails and leather top to be ready to fit when parked.

Did one, excellent job - then did two more and re-fitted them to the Brooks on other bikes - and then made a spare unit to attach to the venerable Galaxy in due course.

All part of the plan to have just one bag that simply clips to the bike I'm riding, rather than multiple bags and sets of tubes, tools etc. The Ortlieb bag is great BUT with the clip in a position that fits direct to the rails on a Brooks B17 the weight causes the bag to sag - my plate mod allows the clip to be further back and balance the bag.

Rob

zigzag · « **Reply #13947 on:** 16 July, 2019, 12:10:46 am »

found the cranks on my utility bike modified by someone backing into it, whilst locked outside to a lamp post:

had to replace the left crank, chainring, chain and straighten the tabs of two spider legs. numpty driver will have to replace their rear light according to the evidence left at the scene.

Torslanda · « **Reply #13948 on:** 16 July, 2019, 09:06:23 am »

Serviced a Pinnacle hybrid. Nothing unusual in that but this worthy had GREASED the disc brakes. It's the first time I've ever had to replace the brake discs as service items.

They've been soaking in brake cleaner and I cannot get the grease off them. The holes in the discs were full of a paté of grease and brake dust.

I don't suppose I should be shocked any more but really, some people are as thick as shit...

robgul · « **Reply #13949 on:** 16 July, 2019, 10:51:06 am »

Quote from: Torslanda on 16 July, 2019, 09:06:23 am

Serviced a Pinnacle hybrid. Nothing unusual in that but this worthy had GREASED the disc brakes. It's the first time I've ever had to replace the brake discs as service items.

They've been soaking in brake cleaner and I cannot get the grease off them. The holes in the discs were full of a paté of grease and brake dust.

I don't suppose I should be shocked any more but really, some people are as thick as shit...

Yebbut - doesn't that fact keep the LBS in business? - I never ceased to be amazed at some of the bikes I see (latest example was a £7,000 eMTB that had most of Warwickshire attached to it + a totally destroyed mech and hanger .... and the bloke had "lost" the key to remove the battery, and the charger)

Rob