Current Projects chat and miscellany

24h silver road rims, where online?

Clincher or tub? How deep?
Halo Caliber is available in 24h silver for clincher, Kinlin TB25 in 24h silver for tubs, both are to order so you'll have to wait a while. DT585 also comes in 24h silver, from http://www.starbike.com/en/dt-swiss-rr-585/ or search for other sources.

I have just acquired, for the princely sum of £5 a complete 1959 Sheffield Langsett club racer in 531. From the original owner. Who is certain he also has the original receipt/build sheet from new, and for the repaint/couple of upgrades done at Shorter's in the 70's.
The old boy used to regularly ride to it Italy with his wife through the 60's making it as far as Sicily and Malta.

Pumped up the tyres and rode it home. Shifts perfectly and stops silently having not been ridden in 30 years.

Specs:
51st 56tt Gorilla geo frame.
Ideale saddle
Maes bars
Mafac centre pulls
Campag hubs, mech and shifter. 5speed hub with track threading on opposite sid complete with lockring
Nice 3pin chainset
Blumels plastic 'guards in perfect nick
Nifty old rack.

Plan is to service it, swap out the drops for porteurs to make up for long tt and have a wicked little commuter for Liz. Would like to get some Langsett decals, will need to contact lloyds or Langsett, who are still in business. Under 30yrs of dust there is no rust to speak of and perfect paint.

Apologies for iphone pics.

Nice one Ed.

Strip it down, orange No Name wheelset, 1 brake singlespeed, Bob's your uncle.

Not til I've cut the braze ons off and got some sweet risers/oury combo on there..

£5, thats amazing.

Project Drop-Bar Fat bike is nearly complete. Just need to dial in brakes, and find a chain tool (I seem to have lost it), plus it has gone past the 1hr I had set aside from revision to play around.

From this:

To this:

The next step involves fashioning some fenders from fenders:

And a rack.

PS- A massive thank you to Smallfurry for the drop bars and brake levers and Gear levers and stem, all the way from norway!(I think)

And to Aladdins for the super cheap cable disc brakes.

rad

£5, thats amazing.

I had to make him take the fiver, he wanted to give me it. If I'd had a hundred in my wallet I'd have given it gladly.
Have promised to do it justice and take it round when I'm done.

Seatpost and stem are both free and out with zero fuss at all. This thing just gets more rad by the second.

easiest way to strip color from external bearing cranks?
I have these and I want them Raw.

Sell those and buy On-One is by far the easiest solution.

well i got these for half the price of on-one's, is sand blasting an option?

Re anodizing then would be your best bet, search j.b metal finishers in maidenhead, apparently they're quite cheap

Seatpost and stem are both free and out with zero fuss at all. This thing just gets more rad by the second.

Really awesome. That bicycle is already a beaut, can't wait to see it all shiny

Rad fatty eyebrows! Mad jelly

Re anodizing then would be your best bet, search j.b metal finishers in maidenhead, apparently they're quite cheap

Anodising external BB cranks is a world of trouble, because the acid bath isn't kind to the pressed in steel axles or the glue that often accompanies the press fit. Also, my machinist reckons JB aren't all that, Metro in Uxbridge are better.

Those cranks look painted anyway, so laborious mechanical removal of the paint should get you back to raw aluminium without the risks inherent in media blasting or chemical attacks.

The reason I suggested buying new is that every other option is labour intensive; either a lot of hard hand work, or some costly masking operations to protect the axle, threads, splines etc from a more full-on attack.

just chuck it in some oven cleaner, it'll be fine.

Steel rims and spokes have surface rust. Clean up and check tension or def require new spokes?

Also, wanted: Mafac inverse levers, but not for the stupid prices us ebay consider them to be worth.

Steel rims and spokes have surface rust. Clean up and check tension or def require new spokes?

Wait for them to break, then rebuild with stainless spokes and aluminium rims.

Tension seems fine and the rust is cleaning off better than expected with 2mins work. Think they'll do til I can afford a rebuild. Hopefully they'll break one at a time, not all at once.

just chuck it in some oven cleaner, it'll be fine.

This^

but plug any threads or tapers/splines as I ruined some square tapers on a pair of s75's

Also, wanted: Mafac inverse levers, but not for the stupid prices us ebay consider them to be worth.

Blame the hipster randonneur for that.

easiest way to strip color from external bearing cranks?
I have these and I want them Raw.

Aircraft paint stripper works a charm, just remember to follow said advice about plugging threads

works faster with a heat gun or hairdryer to be safe so it doesn't warp

Blame the hipster randonneur for that.

I blame you entirely...

Get a track frame.

So many options in your size, don't waste money on that.

i've thought this too at times, but ive been through so much with this little stopcat; it's like an extension (all be it a bit shit) of my soul :(

• maybe *ill have to let go
  

Just won this on eBay! Might be too small tho.

Tension seems fine and the rust is cleaning off better than expected with 2mins work. Think they'll do til I can afford a rebuild. Hopefully they'll break one at a time, not all at once.

If the spokes look brown, you're in luck. Back in the olden days, we had 3 choices of spoke material

1. Stainless - prone to fatigue, because we didn't have the advanced metallurgy which has given us one of the great hidden advances in cycling in the past few decades, stainless spokes which actually work

2. Chrome plated - good steel, but the plating always flaked off because it's more brittle than the underlying steel, which elongates elastically about 0.3% when tensioned

3. "Rustless" - not pretty, but it's a kind of weathering steel which was actually the best we had until good stainless steels turned up. This is probably what you have. Not as strong and fatigue resistant as modern stainless steels, but my dad still rides to the shops on wheels I had built in the early 80s with rustless spokes