"A bad workman...": the tool-chat thread.

Smearing it on with a finger has always kind of worked...

Same here. I've tried grease guns but they always end up a bit incontinent.

I have a Dualco grease gun (available from elsewhere) and a large tube of grease I load it with. It's been really great and feels indestructible.

I used a grease gun in a shop I was wrenching for. Now I tend to use a tub for most things and then I have a grease tube with one of those screw on gun heads for stuff like headset bearings and wheel bearings.
Don't use it very often so even though it's not a lot of grease it lasts a long time. Then I just replace the tube and refit the head.

Thought about this once too. But fingers are fine and always readily available/haven't been lost in the clutter in my garage yet. Otherwise, I use a clean lolly stick or a disposable syringe with blunt needle for bearing races. Someone is bound to tell me about leachables from the plastic syringe that will come out into the grease and make it horrible and bad for the bike now.

There are also special tools made to measure chain wear; these are a bit more convenient, though by no means necessary, and most -- except for the Shimano TL-CN40 and TL-CN41 -- are inaccurate because they allow roller play to confound the measurement of link-pin wear.

Until quite recently, there were no alternatives to these and Shimano wanted nearly £40, assuming you could find one.

I don't know what happened (patent?), but you can now get sensibly priced alternatives, such as from Pedros.

An informative piece on chain wear and how to measure it accurately [yawn].

I thought grease guns were designed for machinery with grease nipples running with total loss systems, where the pressure achievable with a (pro?) grease gun would flush out the 'used' grease.
Many types of grease now available in sealant cartridges meaning a Cox sealant gun can be used for grease dispensing and sealing.

I use my Dualco one to flush the grease through my Speedplay Frogs, works quite well.

really unexciting purchase but my multitool has finally given up the ghost.

Any recommends for a replacement, sane price, with chain breaker. Not fussed about CO2 or any of that bollocks?

Looking at Park I Beam but the allen keys look really short.

Crank Brothers M19 has been great to me, can strip a bike down completely with it. Chain breaker works really well unlike many other models

Nice, thanks. Between that and the Topeak Alien II at the moment-same price but very different styles.

I have the original version of this one the specialized emt pro. Probably been going 10+ years now. Heres the link to new version :

https://www.freeborn.co.uk/specialized-emt-pro-mtb-tool?

IMHO Park are the BLB of tools: frequently just rebranded, often shit and always overpriced (with a few niche exceptions, such as their brake mount facing tool).

I did spend some time looking into them for a pal and he's been happy with whatever it was. I think it was a Topeak and have asked him to let me know (I do remember that it had a nifty tool to hold your chain together while you sort the quicklink out and came in a pouch).

I think this was it: I seem to remember he bought a gold one as it was on discount and the only other coloured one doesn't have the chain hook.

Cheers for the pointer-looks perfect... apart from the length of the keys-I don't know if it's just me being contrary but've found that if they're too short it's a pita trying to get in at tricky places. Can equally go the same way if too long though I suppose!

That is one of the compromises of multi-tools.

Another being that you are buying and carrying tools that have no application on your bike.

Perhaps "audit" your bikes to see what you actually need: eg do you have any Torx screws and what size Allen keys do you need?

I’ve yet to find anything that works as well as a ct-5 Mini Chain Brute.

I even prefer my ct-5 over the ct-7 in the workshop at work as the 5 pushes the pin all the way out.

Also never found a chain tool that was built into a multi tool that wasn’t utterly awful to use. I’d rather just take the slight weight/bulk penalty and carry the ct-5 and an allen key set.

the one on my crankbrothers m19 is fine. not as good as a dedicated big chain tool but not at all bad. split a fair few chains with it

Ended up getting this as I'm curious about the two piece design (pretty handy for the chain breaker) and it's even got a few spanners in it for touring bike/mudguard duties etc: http://www.wiggle.co.uk/topeak-alien-ii-31-function-multi-tool-blackblack/

31 tools is probably overkill but it's not actually bigger/heavier than the multitool i had so worth a punt.

Fair enough: considering the amount of chains you wrangle, I'll happily take your word for it.

I use a Bikehand YC-324SC, which I cannot recommend enough.

As far as multi-tools go, I sold mine: considering the compromises you and UG referred to and having assessed my needs, I normally just carry a dog-leg 4 and 5mm Allen key (together with a tube and inflator).

Do any of these have a decent screwdriver for adjusting front mechs screws, I have a Park one and its just way too pointy.

That does look like s pretty nice chain tool. Adjustable stops are good as that’s the main thing that annoys me about the Park workshop one.

Shimano derailleurs?

The screws are (sort of) JIS, not the standard Phillips.

Park Tool do now make one, despite what they said earlier.

Or you could just use a flat head driver like everyone else, apart from @dancing james .

The stops are handy if you don't want to pop the pin right out.

There are other functions I haven't figured out yet (the screw in the winding knob).

And as a south-paw, I was pleased to find I could take the sleeve off and turn it around!

now that. Is a beautiful sight.

I made a seat-tube cleaner out thingy (mudguard stay bent back on itself) today.

Don't know why I didn't do it years ago, its great.

Stuck a strip of scotch pad stuck it initially which seemed to loosen everything up but leave it in there so a good squirt of wd40 and the rag stuck in the tool really lifted all the clarty old grease and bits of corrosion out and left the seatube sparkling inside.

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