Current Projects chat and miscellany

Has hoping for some hive mind advice/confirming of what I already know. Donohue track upthread: drill fork or acquire similar fork in chrome, which might look shit. Or keep solely for track use, which might be hard to justify to family.

Dangerously close to #shitfixieskidderssay territory here....

Just drill it. Make sure to drill straight though.

Drill it.

One reason I was hesitant was this: unicrown where the tubes are proud of the steerer column, not leaving a huge amount of space to drill. I didn’t fancy DIYing and potentially wrecking it. Argos will charge me what I could probably get a new fork for.

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Drill it. My old Donahue with same fork came home drilled (shoddily) and worked perfectly.
Get a mate with bench drill to do it to get it done right. Measure twice, drill in steps to get to the required 6mm front, 8mm back (iirc).

I drilled a carbon Dolan fork with alu crown back in my uni days with workshop access. Didn't do a die.

Will they? I've been meaning to take a fork down to them, what're they charging?

They reckoned £45, which I think is their minimum charge (I seem to remember drilling a fork being listed as about £25 on their price list).

@Rodolfo was your fork exactly the same? The thing I’m struggling to visualise is how the nut (? Where it goes in to the calliper) of the brake bolt would have space to sit flush against the fork.

That's odd, they've charged me less than that for a few bits. Did you go down in person or just contact them?

I phoned them up. I was planning to just swing by at some point with the fork and see what they said, though. Perhaps they’ll quote me less then.

Do you know anyone else in brizzle who’d do this sort of thing?

some #judiciousfiling on the spider

Amen to judicious filing!

You would use one of these...

https://www.rockandrollbikes.com/weinmann-front-brake-curved-washers.html

Bench drill essential IME. Tom Board built me a beautiful replica of a much earlier Cedric Clayson road/track bike. The fork had Columbus round blades in a flat-topped crown but he drilled the brake hole a few degrees off. It worked but...that fork has been in the spares box for a long time!

Looks like you got enough meat on there but be careful that you'll have sufficient clearance for the caliper on the headset. In the end i got round this by using a Sram caliper that has a sizeable spacer on the back and a less chunky body but it still rubs with some headsets.

And definitely use a bench drill.

@AlexD this was what I was going to suggest and file one side of it to sit flush on the front of the fork.

I think I’d drill it in the material just below the unicrown, but stick a wheel in and measure where the caliper drop ends up first (in case it puts the caliper in the wrong place). If you have a few calipers knocking around on other bikes it might be worth eyeballing them in case one of them will work better. I happened to have a mega low drop Campag caliper that fitted my fork a lot better than my intended single pivot Shimano 105 was going to.

I’ve got a couple of those washers and that’s what I was hoping to use. The problem is that the way the tubes are welded together at the crown doesn’t leave loads of room for it. I’ve drawn what I mean: 6mm hole and then I’m guess about 4mm of washer around that (don’t have one to hand but it looks about right). The drawing shows the highest one of those washers will sit on the fork before it fouls on the welds. It doesn’t leave much material below the hole.

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Yeah, this is why I just use a clamp-on brake.

I reckon you need to file the washer so it can sit slightly over those tubes (ie move the circles up a few mm).

Also there are ways of drilling straight holes without a drill press but its trickier if the thing you're drilling isn't flat, which this isn't. But then its also hard to drill straight holes on non-flat things with a drill press. Clamping is everything.

its trickier if the thing you're drilling isn't flat

The best approach is to make it flat before you drill it, by milling a spot face.

See, this is what I assumed would be the way to go, I just don’t think I have the capability to do that. Is there a bodgy way to do that with a clamp and a hand held drill?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/124172836@N06/page4

there are the pics of the fs thread. apparently that frame sold 5years ago. im effin getting old!

the below picture shows the hole best. it is quite down low, to evade the tubes as is your predicament.
ild drill it a bit up though.
also, heed the good advice given by the rest of the hive mind

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Is there a bodgy way to do that

There's always a bodgy way to do anything. There is also a way to do a great job with hand tools, but it requires a lot of skill and patience. In the end, if you don't have the resources at home and you want a proper brake fitting, it's going to come down to paying somebody else to do the job properly or buying a new fork.

True. I meant more that if you lay the forks down they won't be in the perfect position to drill the brake hole. So you'd have to line up and clamp. Rather than a flat piece of wood or sheet metal where you just plonk it on the the drill table and go for it.

you'd have to line up and clamp

Yes, you definitely want the steerer in a V-block on the mill table as a starting point for work holding.

anyone seen some nice flat crown NJS style track forks that are drilled for sale? Who would make 'em?

Soma?