Drool Dutchy...

"hippy" <[email hidden] wrote

Quoted message said:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2004/tech/shows/?id=eurobike/part1/eb04-storck3

and the new Fizik Airone Carbon:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2004/tech/shows/?id=eurobike/part2/eb04-fizik1

hippy

hippy said:

"hippy" <[email hidden] wrote

Quoted message said:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2004/tech/shows/?id=eurobike/part1/eb04-storck3

and the new Fizik Airone Carbon:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2004/tech/shows/?id=eurobike/part2/eb04-fizik1

hippy

pfaahhhh!

like the saddle but the CF doesnt grab me.
Met a dude last night on a beautifully chrommed fixie. claud butler frame with big curly lugs and NO BRAKES. The boy had skills I could only dream of...

Hippy said:

cyclingnews.comshowsOpen ↗

Must... refrain... from... using... the... p... word.

suzyj said:

Must... refrain... from... using... the... p... word.

so you wouldn't want the chorus flatbar lever ?
velonews.com6888.9108.f.jpgOpen ↗

aeek said:

so you wouldn't want the chorus flatbar lever ?
velonews.com6888.9108.f.jpgOpen ↗

Ummm... No, probably not. Wouldn't go so well with my shiny new stainless stem: http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/sjackson/frame/stem.jpg

About a week's wort of evenings in that 🙂 You'd be amazed how rough investment cast stainless bits can be, not to mention how hard stainless is to work. The tube in the middle will be painted red, to match the frame it's going on.

Having said that, I have ordered a set of Campy Record plastic drop-bar brake levers :eek: as they don't make proper aluminium ones any more 🙁

Regards,

Suzy

suzyj said:

Having said that, I have ordered a set of Campy Record plastic drop-bar brake levers :eek: as they don't make proper aluminium ones any more 🙁

for that real retro look, carve replacement levers from some sorta redwood,
red cedar or cherry might work.
woodworkersnsw.org.auMcGrath.htmlOpen ↗

aeek said:

for that real retro look, carve replacement levers from some sorta redwood,
red cedar or cherry might work.
woodworkersnsw.org.auMcGrath.htmlOpen ↗

think I might be onto something here - wood inlayed lugs !
could you inlay the plastic levers to give them some reality?

Admittedly, my ideas are unrestrained from doing any of this myself.

"suzyj" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

Ummm... No, probably not. Wouldn't go so well with my shiny new
stainless stem:
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/sjackson/frame/stem.jpg

I'm running out of praise and compliments... :-)

Quoted message said:

About a week's wort of evenings in that 🙂 You'd be amazed how rough
investment cast stainless bits can be, not to mention how hard
stainless is to work. The tube in the middle will be painted red, to
match the frame it's going on.

What's the difference with stainless? Why the difficulty?
Is it a week total or was that just the polishing?

Quoted message said:

Having said that, I have ordered a set of Campy Record plastic drop-bar
brake levers :eek: as they don't make proper aluminium ones any more 🙁

Ebay is your friend.. but carbon is _so_ sexy!

hippy

Hippy said:

I'm running out of praise and compliments... :-)

Fankew 🙂

Quoted message said:

What's the difference with stainless? Why the difficulty?
Is it a week total or was that just the polishing?

Stainless is harder than normal steel, sort of like the difference between trying to file brass and steel. Stainless just takes more time to remove material, and needs really sharp tools. The process went something like:

1. Cut tube to length and mitre ends to fit the lugs neatly: ~3 hours.

2. Set the lug sockets so they fit the tube neatly. There were gaps of up to 1mm on the rear one, and the front one was very tight in places, so I used a brass drift and ball-peen hammer to press the lug sockets down over the tube, so the gaps were less than ~0.2mm. ~3 hours

3. File lug shoreline smooth, and clean up with emery (up to 400 grit). The shoreline (edge) is the hardest bit to get at after the lug is soldered on, as it's up against the tube, so making sure it's smooth and shaped nicely before soldering makes it easier later. People like Darrel (Llewellyn) carve all sorts of neat shapes into the lug at this point, using a jewellers saw, but I don't know what I can get away with (yet!) so leave the shape pretty much as the lug designer intended, but just make it crisp and smooth. ~2 hours

4. Clean up interior of lug with 120 grit emery, fit and solder. This is actually the bit I find the easiest. All you need to do is make sure the mating surfaces are clean and shiny, and roughened a little to ensure flux and solder flow well. Then you just coat everything in flux, put it together, gob more flux on the outside, heat it up, and flow in some filler. Assuming everything is really clean and the heat is even, capillary action does the rest. ~1 hour

5. Remove flux. I just chucked the stem into a pot with some water, and boiled it on the stove for a while to dissolve the flux, then gave it a quick once-over with a scotchbrite pad. It helps to be the one that runs the kitchen, as then nobody complains about cooking bike stuff 🙂 ~0.5 hours

6. File lug surfaces to remove pits and other yucky bits, and clean up the lug shoreline (needed very little shoreline work on these ones, as I'm getting the soldering knack). This is done first with second cut files, then with no 2. Swiss jewelers files (smooth). This is the hardest part, where you find all the dents you put in with the brass drift. ~4 hours

7. Sand smooth. I used 120 grit emery, then 180, 240, 400, 600, 800 & 1200 grit wet and dry. Most of the time I used shaped pieces of balsa as sanding blocks, but occasionally used files as a backing as well. This wasn't particularly strenuous, but did take a long time. I'm sure once I've done a few the time will come down, as I had to go back a couple of grades a few times to get bits that I'd missed. ~12 hours

8. Polish. I spent a couple of hours with brasso and rag, and achieved the polish shown in the photo. On Tuesday I brought it into work and used a proper polishing machine (like a bench grinder but with a calico mop) and made it positively gleam in about 20 minutes. ~2 hours.

Total 28.5 hours thus far. Add a couple of hours to mask and paint. Now if I were charging myself the $30 an hour that my employer gives me, that comes to ~$900. Hmmm... Bloody good thing I enjoy this 🙂 Of course if I knew what I was doing, I could probably cut the time in half.

It was done over the course of a week or so, on and off in my spare time. I had Monday off, so it and much of the weekend was spent filing and sanding.

Quoted message said:

Ebay is your friend.. but carbon is _so_ sexy!

I have some older Record ergos on my race bike (aluminium ones) and may swap the actual brake lever bit. But truth be told, I actually like the look of stainless bits alongside carbon (despite dissing carbon all the time). It has a sort of post-modern neo-whatsit industrial cool to it. It looks purposeful, which is what I like.

Regards,

Suzy

suzyj said:

Total 28.5 hours thus far. Add a couple of hours to mask and paint. Now if I were charging myself the $30 an hour that my employer gives me, that comes to ~$900. Hmmm... Bloody good thing I enjoy this 🙂 Of course if I knew what I was doing, I could probably cut the time in half.

It was done over the course of a week or so, on and off in my spare time. I had Monday off, so it and much of the weekend was spent filing and sanding.

I have some older Record ergos on my race bike (aluminium ones) and may swap the actual brake lever bit. But truth be told, I actually like the look of stainless bits alongside carbon (despite dissing carbon all the time). It has a sort of post-modern neo-whatsit industrial cool to it. It looks purposeful, which is what I like.

Regards,

Suzy

Try to get hold of some files called rifflers, which are shaped and bent to get at all the pointy and curvy bits of your complicated lugs. Also you can pick up a really good quality bench grinder for about $200 nowadays, so it makes sense to get some fine brass wire wheels and some arbors, two or more different grades of mop, and a range of buffing compounds. It's a good idea to take the grinding rests and side guards off, or whatever you're comfortable with. No loose clothing, jewellery, et c. Saves hours with the sandpaper and polish. You can brighten up your old forged and polished alloy bits as well (scratched cranks, scored/watermarked stems, seatposts, etc.) then spray some clearcoat on them after wiping them thoroughly with metho. Magic! Bright and shiny!

M "cheapskate" H