forteh

I drive like an old fart, so no chance of hammer The factory studs appear to be a press fit through the hub, grinding the back off would be impossible because it sits inside the bell of the disk. The stud could be drilled out from the outside at a push. The broken nut is circular in section but it's failed almost flush to the rotating taper washer bit. A small socket on an impact gun might rattle it off. But there's nothing to hammer onto. It seems that there's only a few threads holding it on the stud. It's a mc gard nut and they appear to have pretty good after care for broken nuts and extractors, I'll drop them a mail and see what they say.

Emergency car help required! Just changed my front disks and pads on the smax, all fine, no problems, nothing siezed, everything retorqued. Torquing up the last wheelnut (the locking one) and it decides to implode. The f**king thing has obviously been cracked for a while and has just broken its top off It's been nipped up by hand but didn't get up to torque, there is nothing I can get a grip onto to try to undo it; the other 4 nuts are tight and torqued. What's my best plan of attack? Am I safe enough to drive it on 4 studs and hope the broken one vibrates loose in which case I replace it with a standard one? There is a tang stuck out but I don't think it will give enough meat to drift it round with a screwdriver. Other than that, what the f**k can I do? I need the car for tuesday and having it over the weekend is pretty important as well!

I spent 8 quid on a dovetail bit from screwfix I could spend hundreds (looking at the axminster site) but I would have little to no use for most of them, I'm a mechanical engineer rather than a carpenter. The way I see it, I'll buy bits as I need them for a particular job; if I can design the job around the tooling I have then all the better

How old is the chain and cassette? If it's slipping on the rear sprockets at all then I would replace both chain and cassette. It should run almost silent with a well lubricated chain. 8 speed? Fill your boots with whatever you can pick up second hand from pinkbike or ebay; I would go for xt/xtr level, the materials are better quality and given the inherent age of the unit, more likely to last longer. Depending on what your rear mech is will determine what shifter you need, shimano and sram use different actuation ratios (the shifter needs to pull different lengths of cable) and you need to match one to the other. Google your rear mech and find out what shifter you need. Bear in mind that some sram shifters had shimano compatible actuation ratios (specifically the rocket and attack series of 9speed). Personally I'm using a 9 speed sunrace cassette, 10 speed xt shadow+ mech and a 9 speed sram x5 shifter, a right codge up of components that should not, by design, function together due to the cable pull ratios. Putting a 6.3mm spacer block under the cable clamp on the mech changes the ratio and makes it index perfectly

Have you adjusted the B tension screw? It's the one that sets the spacing from the upper jockey wheel to the cassette, if the gap is too small it will chunder as the chain transisions from one to the other.

When faced with headset ball races that are 15 years old and thoroughly abused to the point of rust and siezed solid.... Pop the seals out, soak them in alcohol overnight, dip them in phosphoric acid cleaner for 20 minutes, rinse, dry, repack with grease and jobs a good un Ok, so the bearings are slightly rough but for a headset that is not a concern, replacements from skf retail ar about 35 quid each! Oh and having an oem supplier account with skf helps, along with an MD that will let you buy things on the account

A n/w ring won't solve issues with the rear mech not being properly setup unless it's the front ring that it's falling off. Front chainrings from a multiple ring setup have shifting ramps cut into the teeth so it deliberately derails the chain (hence the derailleur), if your chainline is too far inboard when using the larger sprockets on the cassette it will just pull the chain off the front as if the front mech was there and changing gear. A single specific ring (with full height teeth and no shifting ramps) should alleviate most of your problems but a n/w ring is the better way to go, they generally have extended teeth and the alternating tooth width corresponding with the gap between the chain link plates

Chisels and a lot of practise Don't justify the router purchase based on one job, think of the endless possibilities for future projects

If they put thicker/more packing under one of the bolts it would put uneven forces on the casting and put stress raisers in there. As far as I'm aware, there shouldn't be any significant requirement to move the caliper because the rear axle has moved backwards in the dropouts, there is plenty of contact with the braking surface and the pads. If the wheel had moved forwards then it's feasible that the rotor may have been catching on the caliper (if you're using an oversized rotor like a hope 183 when the caliper is designed for a 180) in which case shimming the caliper up by a couple of mm would work but it should be proper square shims not washers (ie: the hope IS mount shims, they're lasercut from flat sheet rather than washers that are punched and subsequently not as flat). New caliper time, I suspect that they will try to wriggle out of it though. Get some photos of the caliper/bolt setup

Three years ago this madam decided to make an appearance

I'm in Plymouth and precipitation avian is too many miles away to sex. Bah! Damn you, @Luke Rainbird

Being a responsible grown up adult or something, I bought a trailer off ebay to cart the bell tent and wood burner stove around (no room in the boot now we have a pony sized labrador!). 45 quid buy it now for a tatty but sound 48x30" trailer, leaf sprung, obviously old. Got a home made lift off lid with a couple of bike racks attached. The bloke was kind enough to drop it off as he was passing nearby Met up at the garden centre at j11 on the m6, got the trailer exchanged pleasantries and took Persephone to go look at the aquarium and pet shop (honestly three year olds love that shit!). Drove home with no dramas, back garden gate is 30" wide, trailer is 40" wide. No bother, pick it up, turn on side and carry it in. Trailer is 36" tall. Arse Decide to take it apart, was planning on replacing the wood anyway as it was tatty and bits starting to rot. Took the sides off, down to a flat bed so I could roll it through on its side. Uncovered a manufacturer plate under an added bit of bracing plank. Turns out that it was made in stratford upon avon by a company called Pashley Going to redesign the top so it can easily be removed so it will fit through the gate with minimal faff, repaint the chassis and replace all fixings with galvanised. Added bonus, the bike racks are old school thule units so very solid Bit of a win for 45 quid!

Thank god for mrs wife being a stay at home mum / home educator / dog trainer / master cook/baker / decorator / garden designer / seamstress /herbalist and so on so forth Add washable nappies into the mix and the fact she eats anything apart from egg* and Persephone is nice and low maintenance as far as toddlers go! *although who has a baby that is allergic to egg! You try cutting egg out of your diet completely and see how much it's used in everything!

I done gone made a thing! Set up the elu table with the kw779, mounted it onto some 3/4" mfc I had left over from an old vivarium build. Replaced the shonky jaws on my workmate thingy with the mfc sheet and now have a good height, stable router set up. Gives me a reasonable size flat area to build on and clamp to. Got a record underslung vice and marples mitre jig that I'll attach later for added utility. The whole lot will fold up to take less space in storage. Bought a 1/4" dovetail cutter (only a 10 quid screwfix job but all I could instantly buy) and with a bit of trial and error made a door frame with dovetail corner joints Rebated the inside to take the t&g planks to infill the panel and glued the frame together. Unfortunately I cut a couple of the dovetails a bit loose and the back split out of them but have been thoroughly glued and clamped. By the time the panel is glued and pinned in it should be a very solid assembly. Will sand and plane it to fit the slightly out of square frame (which is built on an out of square floor ) before slinging some hinges on there. I initially left 1mm clearance on all sides when taking the measurements, squaring up the outside should open some of the gaps up but should I be aiming for a little looser?

Sloppy or tight? Well I suppose that depends on who you're addressing

Not the end of the world, we can sex next time @Luke Rainbird

See, having learned to mill on a machine with 3/4" backlash in all slides I always take smaller cuts than required. That rig up was taking 2mm x 8mm cuts, high bit speed and slow feed. One hand steadying the machine and one pull feeding the wood across the bit, at no point were my fingers less than 2" from the spinnywhirlyfingerchopper If it were a bigger lump of wood (rather than 20x8 mm strip) or bigger cuts I wouldn't have considered it.

My dad introduced me to machine tools when I was about 6 with the watchmakers lathe, then loose on the hand tools (metal and wood) around 8. I progressed onto the miller and full size lathe around 12. The only machinery he wouldn't let me touch was the radial arm saw. He did have a minor paddy when he caught me swinging an adze towards my shins instead of away Oh and then there's the incident with the bill hook

Was only trimming the back groove off some t&g, very slow and careful mind! For reference, the router is held in the wobbling bench thing, the broken fence is held against the foot plate with the quick grip. It was surprisingly stable

Super ghetto broken router fence rig up Works to a fashion but far from accurate or safe! Also just realised that I don't have any 1/4" router bits to go with the new machine. What should I get? Want to buy a couple of decent bits, is there a general go to choice?

Yes it is a tiny table, I figured it would be only for small jobs, not running a 6 ft rebate. Reassuring to hear the recommendation on the router, black and decker was always a reasonably good brand when I was young, however I got one of their jigsaws a few years back and it was cheap diabolical tat. Took a flyer on the router because its obviously of an older generation. With the duff speed control could I just bypass it and the main trigger and wire in a toggle switch? The erbauer doesn't have a latched switch so using it on a table could be tricky! Or zip tie the trigger on and plug it into an external switch? Stop showing off with the doors!

Not good enough!

2015 was 42 miles, 2016 was 32 miles so sitting nicely in the middle. I found 2015 much harder because I screwed up my hydration, 2016 was comparatively a breeze

After a hiatus last year, the brecon beast is back this year for the last time, 9th September. I've signed up for the short route (only 37miles because I'm old, and a girl), who else is coming along for a TF bimble? @MadManMike @Luke Rainbird @Tom Booth @CurtisRider @Adam@TartyBikes @Ali C who else? edit: eh? I'm sure I put this in bike chat! Can a mod move it? Do we have mods?

Picked up a smaller router, a black and decker kw779 of ebay for 20 quid, it should fit the elu table I have and will be a bit more handleable than the big erbauer. It's only 1/4" but should be fine for the smaller jobs. Will make a table to fit the erbauer, been offered a 1200 square oak worktop for nowt that I'll use part of to make into the table and use the rest for shelving. With a bit of imagination I can use the fence and accessories from the elu table.