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Worry about work! Also, as daughter is home, made three canvas stretchers and repurposed some pallet wood into various art related panels.

I have had the same Clarke for a very long time. I have just bought a genuine Dremel cutting disc set that cost as much as the Clarke did 25 odd years ago. The discs look so much better than the eBay cheap things I have been using. Thought I needed to replace the Clarke but a new set of...

Are the stems branded as Softride?

I had a USE bouncy seat post with a similar looking clamp. The saddle always seemed to slip and point up to the degree that if anything needed lubing, it was the saddle!

The different stem just transforms it. It looks far more purposeful now.

It was back out with the forge as the billet was rather too variable in thickness. Also, it had remained too hard to easily work with a file and hacksaw. I kept it glowing hot for a while and then let it cool as slowly as I could in the forge. Still a touch harder than the fully annealed O1...

Oh the pain! My advice for the day. Never, ever arm wrestle a blacksmith. If they survive the first month, arms and grip must be epic! After an hour (sorry neighbours) of heating, beating, minor burns, sweat drops flying everywhere and a hammer head launching itself across the garage, we...

To quote (I think) the late, great Frank Muir, “Four Quenelles!” What is the retirement age for a blacksmith? Around 23 I reckon. After that they must have had it. A day off sees me in the garage. I have failed at carpentry this week so I thought I might as well fail at metal work as...

Thanks everyone. I’ll have to see if I can find the backplate.

Sorting through a random bag of junk that I took with me to the Repair Café we did yesterday. One bike by the way. 12” wheels! I was at least able to adjust the young gentleman’s brakes so they would at least retard his progress slightly. They really didn’t seem to have been designed and...

I might see some this morning! Wife has volunteered me for another Repair Café. I’m down for bike fettling and sharpening stuff.

There is usually another position on the chain tool that is designed to loosen a stiff link. It isn’t braced at the back like the splitter part.

There was a great book I had at some point now lost in that place where all your most treasured teenaged treasures went. My lovely mug of two vultures quizzing each other about naming a famous F1 driver, (Lauda, etc) is there as well. Triathlon by Dave Scott I think it was. There were some...

Yes, we have an allotment thread somewhere. We are still working our way through the last harvest: Squashes. These make for very good risotto, soups and curries. I always try to roast them first. They are a bit past their best but tomorrow’s roast will need to include parsnips: We have...

Yup, already done! It shouldn’t move either. I used threaded rod straight down 90mm to 8mm flat fitted into slots cut with a router.

Check it out: One cheap Chinese steel anvil installed on a scaffold board stand. I’ll have to wait to try it as I’m away with work all next week! you can just see the frame of one of the fleet there as well!

Love it! I much prefer that grind over the typical bush knife grind. Bevels of only 6mm or so look odd to my eyes. There’s some character in that wood isn’t there? I am making a stand for my little anvil at the moment. Just pondering how best to screw it down. I think I have a plan.

some useful looking billets there. Can you predict what the pattern will look like? I decided in the end that I really don’t need a fly press. It is on the long list of things entitled, “Stuff I want but don’t really need.” Instead, I went and got an anvil. Not a proper one. Again, that’ll...

Holy Thread Resurrection, Batman. I dug this bike out of the garage yesterday. I think it has been used maybe once or twice since this thread started? This is going to change. The plan is to take bikes on holiday to Scotland in the summer. Does anyone have a pickup bike rack solution that...

Mad that something as everyday (especially to retro bikers) as WD40 prevents metals from oxidising at north of 870 degrees!! Life is cool or hot.