Any question answered...

https://youtu.be/LNjuxtjtuWg

Which are the best pads for regular rim brakes? (Not SwissStop please, their prices are absurd.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6zhSXSiOpg

Swissstop BXP.
Costs as much as KoolStop where I'm based.
Granted, they wear a bit faster than a harder compound.

Koolstop.

where I'm based

In Swizzerland?

Will a qr wheel work in a front fork dropout designed for solid axle bolt on wheels?
Disc brake, I'm concerned the wheel might shift under heavy braking.

🇩🇪

I use ones like this on one of my bikes and really don't notice any difference from the more expensive ones. They are much better than 105 blocks in the wet. If you're in London I can let you have 2 pairs for free if you want.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pairs-Brake-Installation-Caliper-Blocks/dp/B0714C6CXW/ref=sr_1_40?keywords=Bike+Brake+Blocks&qid=1669062594&sr=8-40

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Thanks. I've got lots of old leather. Probably won't need new leather for a bit. I want to do motifs and letters and maybe a sort of paint by numbers approach to a Van Gogh or Picasso or something...a different colour piece of leather for each different coloured area of the painting, IYSWIM. I'll paint the bits with Angelus leather paint then glue them to boots or jackets or whatever. I've bought a used Cameo 4 on ebay. Not collected it yet. No idea what to expect. I hope all will become clear when I start playing with it.

I don't think there's any difference in dropout design between forks that originally had a solid, nutted axle and forks that were originally used with QRs. You're right to be cautious with disc brakes, but my understanding is that QRs can actually provide more clamping force than nuts [not true, see tester's post below]. Best to go for an old-school QR with a hidden cam, rather than a lightweight one.

Ah-ha, gotcha, thanks for explaining. Definitely all do-able, and a handy tool for translating artwork from screen.

If it turns out you can’t cut thicker leather, one other option it to cut card templates with it, and then trace with a scalpel.

my understanding is that QRs can actually provide more clamping force than nuts.

More than a nut or bolt with the same thread as the QR. Replacing an M5 threaded QR with M9×1.0 nuts significantly increases holding force.

Every day's a school day!

A physics (I think) question... No idea how to work this one out.

I have a raised decking area in my (very sloped) garden, that gets the sun in summer until about half an hour before sunset. Which is to say, the sun 'sets' behind my roof about half an hour before it sets behind a much further away hill to the West.

The deck is about ten metres away from my house and three metres lower than the roofline. It is pretty much directly due East of the house.

The deck is also rotten and needs replacing - and it's a little too high up to sit neatly in the garden.

If I lowered the decking by, say 50cm or 100cm, how much sooner would I lose the sunshine on a summer evening?

https://findmyshadow.com/

How long is the imaginary piece of string in my hand? Bearing in mind it is either longer or shorter depending on the time of year.

Your imaginary piece of string is twice the length from one of the ends to the middle.

Your deck is currently atan(3/10) = 17 degrees below your roofline. If you lowered it 50cm it would be atan(3.5/10) = 19 degrees below your roofline.

Assuming in the middle of summer the sun moves vertically (360/24) = 15 degrees per hour, or 4 minutes per degree. (19-17) * 4= 8 minutes.

Someone will be along shortly to tell me how I fucked up my maths.

But, my string isn't imaginary and I know its dimensions...

Fabulous. That seems to make sense to me.

Thanks all for the help. I'm not getting anywhere with Condor. I left the bike with them today and they've concluded that everything should compress nicely when I built the bike up properly and compress the topcap etc. I bought it as a frame and fork so haven't got to the full build stage yet. They use the same size headset bearing on all integrated frames.
Again, i'm incredibly dubious. Every bike on the showroom floor has a significantly smaller gap between fork and headtube, even the customer sales team acknowledge there's a bigger gap on my frame than the others.
I've concluded that if there's nothing else they can do, I'll try and build it up and see if that works - on the proviso that if that doesn't fix the problem they'll find another solution, despite me having to cut the steerer etc.

Every day's a school day!

FWIW, the limiting tension on a CrMo 5mm QR is about 9kN, which gives a normal load of about 4.5kN at the friction faces holding your wheel in place. Even a lower 8.8 grade nut on a solid M9×1 axle can be tightened to more than 20kN tension or 10kN normal load. Even better, instead of 108mm of 5mm rod being the spring in the middle which let's the dropouts bounce out of the sandwich, there is just 6 or 7mm of 7.3mm root diameter threaded rod on each side to stretch. For a given prying force, that's about 35 times more elastic displacement in the QR skewer compared with the short exposed piece of axle in a nut fastened set up.

they've concluded that everything should compress nicely when I built the bike up properly and compress the topcap

I think I'd reject the frame and fork. If the components are mechanically correct, I'd accept that kind of aesthetic flaw on a $200 chinesium beater, but not on a supposedly premium brand.

I'm still worried that the fork is a QC reject candidate or somebody has fucked up and installed the wrong bearing, but if Condor want to stand behind their claim that it's fine, tell them to install the headset and preload it to the correct setting and see how much gap you're prepared to accept as a visual flaw with their guarantee that it's mechanically sound.