Current Projects chat and miscellany

So, this old frame has been hanging in my garage for quite a while. I had a dent in the top tube removed by Rob Quirk, then it was hung for a while longer ...

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This last week, I turned it into this. It's set up for the road at the moment, but I have kept a fat knobbly pair of tyres for some action in the woods ...

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Close up of the stem please

You can see the front of it here. It's a Cinelli Groove road bike stem that I bought off @Wadi2 on here. I reglued the Cinelli badge on the front of it, and replaced the slightly rusty bolts with new stainless ones. It's mounted to a Cane Creek headset with a Columbus top cap.

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nice job !

Looks ace

Another beauty by Dekerf! My vote is for a sick fade paintjob. It's a Chromag, it deserves it!

Does anyone know about tapered headsets / forks ?

I have cracked forks on my green Pinnacle Dolomite 4 which has a 1 1/8 to 1 1/2 tapered steerer so I have been looking.

@Jon. had some spares and now I am confused as the large bottom bearings doesn't fit on what looks like an integrated crown race.

See photos - ideas welcome.

The stock bearing is a TH-073 ACB 36°X45° MR127 FOR 1.5" STEERER

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Bloody hell, some transformation that! Looks swell.

The ✓ next to 45 on your old steerer would suggest it's smaller than 1.5 inch since the outer diameter of 1.5 inch bearings are 52mm (which isn't checked). Maybe the old fork/bottom headset bearing/head tube is a 1.25 inch, or even 1.375 inch..

Maybe check the size of both forks with some calipers?

The tick is for the fork offset which is 45mm.

The bearing is 52mm diameter external.

The Specialized forks taper go from 38.5mm to 45mm to 52mm.

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The Specialized forks taper go from 38.5mm to 45mm to 52mm.

Sure? 38.5mm is 1.5 inch, that wouldn't really make any sense..
Edit: pictures really helped.

I've been looking at the specialized fork and the red paint line doesn't seem to be horizontal. It looks like some proprietary specialized design where the headtube extends past the headset.. So it would fit into your bike just like in your first picture, with a black part sticking out from under your headtube.

I think it's sort of a integrated crown race design to save weight. You can really see it when you google pictures of the new Roubaix headtube/fork area. The bearings sit higher than where the headtube ends.

Actually...

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Mystery Solved

I did a bit more research and I understand that the forks are from a 2016 S-Works Tarmac Disc which happens to have a proprietary steerer...

FORK: Specialized FACT carbon, full monocoque, size-specific taper, disc mount

HEADSET: 1-1/8"" upper, size-specific lower, stainless steel cartridge bearings, carbon top cap

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Huh, am surprised! Perhaps the other tyres I've tried on my Donohue are larger than their states sizes then, as it's nowhere near as tight with Veloflex ones as is current with some Bontrager tyres.

Yeah I think most of them tend to come up larger. I suppose the Veloflex have no rubber sidewall which I expect would add 1mm on an otherwise identical tyre. And those ones I measured are on a 17mm internal rim which is a bit wider than older 700c wheels.

This bike has been bombproof this winter , may get risers and rack in future

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This is absolutely fantastic, I'm just trying to figure out which category of porn to put it in...

That’s very kind of you. Was pretty cheap to build and by far my favourite bike

i keep seeing vernier calipers in this thread. do people get those cheap digital ones off ebay? are they good?

Have a read of this: https://www.lfgss.com/comments/13917310/incontext/?utm_source=notification&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=reply_to_comment

Those ones I've got seem pretty great but they've not had a massive amount of use. I'd say they were worth the <£20. You can get cheaper ones but it's a on gamble as to the accuracy and design. Aldi/Lidl have them occasionally which might be your best bet for cheapo ones.

I have to measure stuff for a living. Generally, those cheap ones aren't reliable. If you wang them about they can jump about and then you don't know where you are. Like @mdcc_tester mentioned, you can pick up a manual vernier caliper for not a lot and it'll always read correctly. I got my Mitutoyo ones second hand on eBay for about £15 delivered and they looked like they'd never been used. They'll always have resale value as well.

Rather pedantic of me, but it might avoid confusion later: "Vernier" and "digital" refers to the scale and not the type of caliper, so they are either Vernier or digital.

They're usually both an internal and external type: eg they can measure both the outside of a seatpost and the inside of the seat tube.

They're usually both an internal and external type: eg they can measure both the outside of a seatpost and the inside of the seat tube.

Yeah, handy to have both. The ones I have can measure depth as well with a little rod that extends past the end of the caliper which might be worth having if for some reason you need to measure the depth of a drilled hole or something accurately.