Saturday, November 27, 2010

Rear wheel: quick update.

The gorgeous conical hub and its brake plate have gone off to the machine shop to be sandblasted clean.
Should look pretty good when done.
I took the rim, spokes and nipples to the workshop. The rim cleaned up real nice with a brillo pad and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the chrome plating is in much better shape than I had thought at first. There are only a couple of spots where iron oxide has bitten hard but not enough to warrant having the whole thing re-chromed. There's something else to be said regarding re-chroming rims: very often, if you see a lot of oxidation on the rim, chances are it will have built up inside the rolled edges (where the tire sits) and there is no way to really get in there and get rid of the rust. So you could have a perfectly shiny rim and a bunch of rust on the inside.... would you like that on your bike? Thought not.
The rear wheel will be built up pretty soon. Things have started to happen, it's exciting at this stage because although it's small things that go slowly, you know they'll lead to progress (and it's exciting because we still haven't run into any problems so we're not jaded yet - but give that time). From now on, parts will fit together to make a machine that moves. How cool is that, really?

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