Sunday afternoon and I’ve turned down a trip to Cosford Airshow (would probably have been the beter option) in order to try my hand at straightening a buckled rear wheel on my bike.
I had researched the job on Youtube and as usual they all claim it is an easy job if you take your time. My experience today would argue otherwise. I purchased the spoke key I needed to make adjustments, although at least one clip recommended just pressing down on the offending wheel edge with bodyweight to do most of the work. The multi size key was a snip from ebay and looks the job and does works well.
I was a bit reluctant to mess with the rear wheel as it has all the cogs and geasr mechanisms but, wanted to try my hand at putting right one of the biggest bug bears of my cycling; the buckled wheel. So I managed to get everything appart and the weather remained dry, a good start. I even found a marker pen to record where the wheel needed adjusting and cheerfully sat down to start adjusting the spokes.
Trouble number one: one spoke was not lose it was broken. I managed to bend the tip round to fix the broken end back into the wheel hub and this worked quite well as I tightened it back up but, then I realised I had been going for over an hour and there was no blood. This could only mean I was doomed to fail as the DIY demon only lets things work after a blodd sacrifice. Sure enough, two hours later the wheel was still showing no signs of improving and I still hadn’t shed a single drop of blood.
The biggest trouble I found was trying to tell how my adjustments had changed the running of the wheel. All the demonstartions had a special stand to check this without having to put the wheel back into the frame. I did not. I eventually gave up and plan to ring Bicycle repair man ‘Big Al’ for some advice. He may even have the wheel stand.
So next on my list was Annette’s ‘indistructable’ fat free frying pan (going rate£45 +) she had bought as a set of pans for £20 off the market. For some reason the handle had fallen off and I rather suspected it was a piece of broken bakerlight moulding where the screw fastens the handle to the base. Sure enough, there was a three piece jigsaw puzzle where the handle was supposed to screw together.
Undetered I carted the bits up into the loft where I could use some of my glues to try and put it together again. To my surprise, the ordinary bostic did a rather good job at this(although I expect it to fail and the first wash) and after letting it dry for a couple of hours glued it back into place and screwed the handle back on. It dries now as a taunting reminder I still haven’t lost a drop of blood.
So while I was awaiting the glue drying I decided to repair the Prussian infantry I had re-based. Not too difficult a job, so long as you have a nice pot of water and a clean paintbrush to was off the excess base material. I even found the filler I wanted first time and have another four bases awaiting a lick of green flock to finish them off.
All in all, not too bad a days work, but my main task the wheel remains a big problem. As I have now got nearly two weeks full time work, it is likely to remain unresolved for some time. No wonder I didn’t break out the blood.