Spoke Insertion Tools and other small bits
I made one of these when I was first playing with my lathe, gave it to John Speare, and forgot about it. He told me last week that he uses it with every wheel that he builds, and asked if I’d be interested in making 12 more of them for Pedals 2 People’s wheelbuilding class. It is just a dull needle with a rough spiral on it that a nipple can sit in. You place the nipple into the tool, use the tool to push it into the rim, then remove the tool. It makes life easier on rims with deep cross sections where the nipple can get lost between both walls.
I’ve never really made a “run” of anything on my manual lathe before, so it was fun to think through the process to make a bunch of similar objects. Once I got the system down these took about 3 minutes each. Some are short because the needle bent or broke during manufacturing, so I just shortened the body and made a new needle. Those ones probably took 5 minutes. Figuring out how to do it in an efficient manner took me about an hour. So two hours of work, but next time it will be one.
Andre Ball built up a Schwinn Traveler with a Nexus 8sp hub. The chainstay cable housing stop on that bike is very close to the dropout and that short cable run made it difficult to remove the rear wheel. This is an under the bottom bracket cable housing stop and cable guide. It replaces the plastic cable guide that you’ll find on most bikes.
Being able to fabricate small bits like this can be very useful.
Thanks again for making this little piece Alex, repurposing the rack tab was a great idea. I”ll get some photos of the setup and the whole bike to show you. Yes, had you not had the tools to make this simple part there was not many more options. I was trying to think of other options. One would have been to use a reveresed clamp on housing stop and moved it to the downtube just above the bottom bracket and then run bare cable up to the housing stop at the top of the downtube. Or I could have run a full hosing and lots of zipties (gag).
Those fat ones remind me of some weird arc melted Bulk Metallic glasses that I helped make once. Such a pleasing chubby aspect ratio. I love that you made a steel ergonomic toothpick.