Fixing a Victorian

[Nabeaquam]

I put on gloss black, satin dark red and finally satin crimson. After a few days I’ll give it a sanding with 1500 wet/dry and shoot a final satin crimson layer.
A final layer of Dry Slide will give me the dirty aged look I’m after. My hack bike frame stash contains a dark red frame and I tried DrySlide on it. This should do it.
Before Dry Slide.
After dry slide.

 

[Nabeaquam]

It’s 8-10C at night and 20C during the day. It’s going to get slowly warmer each day and by Monday 25C. I’ve hung the frame in my woodshed for protection from overnight rain and plan to fine wet sand it Monday and put on final paint. Hopefully I can do all this Monday. Yesterday was a perfect paint day, warm and very calm. I know I’ll want to polish the final paint but this has to end somewhere. I’m hoping I can live with Monday’s paint job and assemble it.

 

[Nabeaquam]

Dead calm yesterday and today, can’t get much better for paint. Calm like this is a rare event. Just took this photo.

 

[Woz]

Only just realised (sorry, sometimes I don't pay much attention to things / everything) but how the hell does a front hub go in them there forks on yonder hill?

Is the front hub axle / spindle threaded internally with a couple of domed bolts that get threaded in it?

I can well understand when it comes to a track bike a quick release change is not on the cards, but again, this seems once again a clever way of doing things compared to an external nut. How does the wheel centre and get vertical; are the manufacturing tolerances that good?

 

[Nabeaquam]

Only just realised (sorry, sometimes I don't pay much attention to things / everything) but how the hell does a front hub go in them there forks on yonder hill?

Is the front hub axle / spindle threaded internally with a couple of domed bolts that get threaded in it?

I can well understand when it comes to a track bike a quick release change is not on the cards, but again, this seems once again a clever way of doing things compared to an external nut. How does the wheel centre and get vertical; are the manufacturing tolerances that good?

They are a pain, I have four old bikes with the same set up. You have to have the hub axle off set, short and long end. You put the long end in first and pull with all your grunts to move the fork enough to force the short side in, removing fork paint and scratching frame paint as the bike is usually on the ground with you standing on it to get leverage. You could try to pull the axle all the way over and then thread it back and adjust it. The other old bikes like this I own have no lock nuts on the front hub axle. The tight fitting fork hole acts as the lock nut. They are a pain to adjust when mounted so this is another reason to use vintage hubs with lock nuts. The proper way would be to thread it back over and adjust the play but I use the brute force method.

 

[Woz]

Mmmh.

I can see the "right way" to do it would be a pain and a three handed job.

And there's me thinking this was something clever. Perhaps back then there was a certain trick to do it? I'm having difficulty imaging it would be OK to have a long sticky out portion of the axle on a track bike; it makes no sense.

Think if it was me, I'd simply get rid of the in-board lock nut, make sure the cones are held in place with buckets of grease (and assuming there is enough compression on the fork blades), slot the wheel in with one hand, and with the other hand slide in a screw-driver on one side all the way through. If that went well, beer time. Then gently screw in the axle from one side, to the other, and when it's centred start fiddling with the cones one by one.

I could also see myself swearing like mad if the cones and ball bearings fell out on the dusty garage floor

 

[Nabeaquam]

Mmmh.

I can see the "right way" to do it would be a pain and a three handed job.

And there's me thinking this was something clever. Perhaps back then there was a certain trick to do it? I'm having difficulty imaging it would be OK to have a long sticky out portion of the axle on a track bike; it makes no sense.

Think if it was me, I'd simply get rid of the in-board lock nut, make sure the cones are held in place with buckets of grease (and assuming there is enough compression on the fork blades), slot the wheel in with one hand, and with the other hand slide in a screw-driver on one side all the way through. If that went well, beer time. Then gently screw in the axle from one side, to the other, and when it's centred start fiddling with the cones one by one.

I could also see myself swearing like mad if the cones and ball bearings fell out on the dusty garage floor

I really should try this. I’ll let you know how it works. There was probably a right way to do this back then and it must have been similar to what you are suggesting. When I got the old bikes without fork drops they always had off set hub axles. Everyone probably did the grunt method to install a wheel in these by grunt spreading. My usual method is a no brainer, just requires a lot of force. Thinking about this: since light weight racing single tube tires were almost impossible to be field repaired, and spares were not foldable, the bike had to go to tools for a shellac mount of a new tire so fussing with the screwy tires made the fork mount problem just a hiccup in comparison. For us now using clinchers or the original wood rims with cyclocross 33mm track type tubulars the wheel mounting to the fork is a more significant pain in the donkey.

 

[Woz]

Good luck!

 

[hamster]

I can imagine some kind of tool like a wedge with a slot up it - slide the fork tip up the wedge and over then end of the axle, then withdraw the wedge, springing the fork tip over the axle.

A pickle fork balljoint splitter would do the trick if wrapped in tape.

 

[Mickeyspinn]

I've often looked at these forks without dropouts and thought hhmmm fun
Your point about solid tyres and hence no need to remove wheel frequently for punctures made me think....
If it were mine I'd either cut the slot and be done or.... more likely I'd open the hole up bigger and make some axle nuts with a smaller diameter section that fits in the new hole...obv less than the dropout thickness! That means less axle length and more baggy room aswell! Would still have the original looks too