What have you fettled today?

[rogerzilla]

The Holdsworth is ready to run except for brake calipers and bar tape. It looks like a greyhound.
  Front hub bearings are rumbly as the cups are rough (residue fron the rechroming, I think - cones are perfect and balls are new).  Plan is to run it for a few hundred miles then change the balls and grease.  It should get smoother.

[Torslanda]

Customer brought an old steel Claud Butler ATB frame in and wanted a singlespeed conversion. He'd already fitted a 46 single chainwheel but the chainline wouldn't allow a screw on freewheel, even when the axle spacers were reversed. I found a matching rim on a used Quando cassette hub, added a proper 18 tooth sprocket for 1/8" chain and played with the spacers until the chainline was bang on. When it came to fitting the chain it turned out to be a magic gear. Result!

[Gattopardo]

Striping two different kenwood chefs.  Both easily stripped but one gearbox contained LM grease while the other contained copper grease.  Both motors have been stripped and the carbon brushes are finished.  Both motors full of carbon dust.

[Ham]

After various iterations over the years I have now probably created the cycling tools board ...

<snip>
.... there must be better things to do with my time 

Rob

Corrr!  Even MrsLurker says she likes that.

The reason I dropped by, mainly for AndyTheFlyer's,  ElyDave's and Ham's (heh heh heh) benefit.  Started on the Sopwith kit yesterday.  Work in Progress.  About 5 hours effort, ignoring "workshop" set up / tear down time.  On that basis I reckon on total effort somewhere in the region of 25 to 30 hours.

What made me catch up reading this thread? It was never going to end well.

Fettlage putting my Stainless CdF back together again, just got to set up the derailleurs now. That and send back the Thomson SHINY seat collar which I bought based on the wall thickness of the titanium frame tube thus 31.8 not 29.6, luckily from CRC which makes it an easy task.

[T42]

Put a new FD cable on the Trek.  Fiddly bloody job until you actually RTFM.

Thought I'd get away with just doing the cable, but the wee fine lead-in tube on the housing has, of course, split, buggrem, buggrit etc. and shrimp, and I haven't got a new housing so I'll have to shake the internetting and hit REDO FROM START some time next week.

They do it on purpose, you know.

[Ham]

Back, as good as it has never been away. Superb welding courtesy of Fisher & Stitt, them of Shand cycles.



Mudguards not yet re-fitted. Sharp eyed people who knew the bike before might notice that the seatpost is now SHINY too, and wonder why the seat collar isn't. See above.

Gears fettled better than before, although I've swapped noise in top 3 gears (on big front) for noise in big/big, and unhappy shifting in bottom gear from little to big front (obv connected)

Aren't 11 speed fussy?

[ElyDave]

what tyres have you got on that?

[Kim]

Stuck some new pedals on the Red Baron and tried riding up Primrose Hill slowly in bottom gear.  No mysterious clunking was apparent.  I'll call that a crash-damaged pedal bearing then, and then can go in the bin (they're M520s that have gone clicky, so no point attempting to service the bearing).

[Ham]

what tyres have you got on that?

Conti Sport Contact 2, I rather like them.

[rogerzilla]

Changed the inner ring on the Ron Cooper crankset to a 39T and gave the brakes an inspection and wipe over (they feel very smooth so I'm not taking them apart) and fitted new pads.  They're Shimano 600 SLR sidepulls, with the thrust bearing and nylon spring bushings, and they are absolutely perfect in form and function.  Sheldon Brown always thought the SLR sidepulls were the bee's knees; dual-pivots have a simple screw to centre them but, apart from that, are worse in every way.

The whole groupset (Shimano 600 "tricolour" throughout, except for a Dura-Ace headset) is now cleaned and ready to refit, although I still need to rebuild the wheels.  DT Revs for the front, Revs on the left at the rear and Comp on the right.  It will not be a quick build, as Revs wind up like nobody's business.  However, they do make an exceptionally good wheel; I built the front one on the Fuji 13 years ago and it's never gone even half a mm out of true, despite crashing through potholes that made the frame creak.

A little bonus lurking under the dried-out tyres was a pair of perfectly good pink Vittoria latex tubes.  Personally, I'd have had better tyres and stuck with butyl tubes, but someone wanted to go fast.

[T42]

Looked at the bike, said "**** it, it's clean enough" and put the front wheel back on.

[Kim]

And we all know there's only way to negotiate with the Red Baron, and that's not with words.

Indeed not: I used a BFO torque wrench, a slightly modified Park Tools crank remover, allen keys and some harsh language.

Chainring guard successfully installed, front machine gun derailleur coaxed back into an approximation of working.  I don't appear to have introduced any *new* funny noises, so I think that's a win.

[ElyDave]

Dishwasher, salt thing overfilled and gone claggy. Teaspoon job

Squared off a dented usb cable end.

Refettled  the hinge on the cover of my android tablet, needs epoxy again, just tape for now, but cheaper than £25 for a new cover.

[hatler]

In France, staying in a BFO house that claims to have ten bikes available for use (though four are v definitely for children under 10 yo). We needed six. I spent the morning fettling the six larger ones into something approximating working order. Tyres pumped on all of them. Seat posts unstuck and greased. Quite a bit of brake fettling, some gear limit screw adjustment. One mudguard adjusted. One wheel nut nicked off one of the kids bikes to allow the wheel to sit straight in the frame. Only one ended up marginal - the headset is shagged, the mangled cage was hanging out of the lower bearing. It was either too loose to be safe or too tight to enable steering. I bodged as best I could and it made it the three miles down the road and back. I just took it apart and hope to find an LBS in the next few days so I can get it back in one piece.

[T42]

BFO house

Bigfoot Research Organization? Banking Fidelity Oath? Basic Formal Ontology? Big Fuck-Off?

Anyway, by the light of the silvery Petzl I have just spent a nasty half-hour wrestling air ducts back onto the big extractor unit in the loft that serves the bathroom, loo and kitchen. Workies passing through to repoint the ridge tiles had trodden on them with their great workies' clodhoppers then softly and silently stolen away. The wire spirals inside and the poor man's jubilee clips around them were trodden coggly. Filthy, fiddly job. Bleh.

[hatler]

BFO house

Bigfoot Research Organization? Banking Fidelity Oath? Basic Formal Ontology? Big Fuck-Off?

The latter.

[hatler]

In France, staying in a BFO house that claims to have ten bikes available for use (though four are v definitely for children under 10 yo). We needed six. I spent the morning fettling the six larger ones into something approximating working order. Tyres pumped on all of them. Seat posts unstuck and greased. Quite a bit of brake fettling, some gear limit screw adjustment. One mudguard adjusted. One wheel nut nicked off one of the kids bikes to allow the wheel to sit straight in the frame. Only one ended up marginal - the headset is shagged, the mangled cage was hanging out of the lower bearing. It was either too loose to be safe or too tight to enable steering. I bodged as best I could and it made it the three miles down the road and back. I just took it apart and hope to find an LBS in the next few days so I can get it back in one piece.

LBS found and joy of joys he had a plastic box with hundreds of different sets of roulements.

Right size identified in about two seconds flat and two sets of caged balls exchanged hands for €4.

Bike remantled yesterday and now in working order, although the headset races aren't the smoothest, but I wasn't going to get involved in that.

[T42]

Mucking about with my WIP router sled: longer, lower rails etc.

Took the splints off me dotter's busted bass and pared off the excess glue. Have to veneer the headstock now to hide the repair.  Incredible how anyone manages to split a rock maple headstock and bend the sticky-out twiddler bits of the machines. Must be another one that got stood upon.

God, ebony veneer's pricey.

I'm just imagining how wonderful it would be to get the veneer perfectly aligned, trimmed and glued up, then realize that I had covered up the holes for the tuners.  Now I've thought of it I can't possibly be so daft as to do it, right?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Back, as good as it has never been away. Superb welding courtesy of Fisher & Stitt, them of Shand cycles.



Mudguards not yet re-fitted. Sharp eyed people who knew the bike before might notice that the seatpost is now SHINY too, and wonder why the seat collar isn't. See above.

Gears fettled better than before, although I've swapped noise in top 3 gears (on big front) for noise in big/big, and unhappy shifting in bottom gear from little to big front (obv connected)

Aren't 11 speed fussy?

What had to be welded and why?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Washed my bike, cleaned and oiled the chain, replaced the brake blocks and even did a bit of truing to the rear wheel.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Currently building up a front wheel for LEL. Then just need to dig up a couple of Son-compatible spade connectors, replace a gear cable, a brake cable and handlebar tape and it will be just about ready.

[Chris N]

Bust a spoke on my commuter's crappy front wheel on the way into work the other day so took the dynamo wheel and lights off the ti bike to put on the commuter for the winter.  Fixed a puncture on the back wheel at the same time, and took the nice wheel off the Cannondale to go on the ti bike - tubeless Panaracer Gravel King went up first time with a track pump. 

[Plug1n]

Replaced all the non-drive side spokes in a rear wheel I built up last weekend.  Velo Orange Hi-Low hub with Halo Retro rim, 36 hole.  Something in the calculations went wrong and the non-drive spokes were 2mm short.  As I had been a tart and used alloy nipples on the non-drive side, this was not good.

The hi-low stuff is a bit inconsequential and the VO hub only has a minor height difference between the two flanges compared to old Campy ones.  However, the difference is enough to make it hard to remove some  spokes in a built up wheel.  Those that fit from outside the the non-drive side flange need some significant effort and bending to get out over the high side lacing triangles.

Looks pretty now it is done.

[Jacomus]

I have badly fettled the timing chain on my Brommie about three times so far today!

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Finally put Son-compatible spade connectors onto my Moulton's Cyo about 15 minutes before leaving for the LEL start. I'm not a fan of last-minute fettling, so I gave myself plenty of time to get it done.