Wednesday 5 September 2018

Charlie's Shed - Free the Nipple

We have to make a new set of cables for the W/NG's new handlebars, using the techniques shown in my Cable Making post here. Unfortunately, the lovely Czech levers I have appear to be a little under size for the clutch and brake cable nipples so we are going to need some non-standard nipples.

This presents yet another mini-lathe opportunity. Starting with a bit of brass (10 mm OD) we turn a suitable length to provide two nipples to provide an easy running fit in the lever - about 8.8 mm.


This done, we need to drill the holes. The inner cable diameter (for the clutch in this case) is about 2 mm, so we'll need a through hole for that and a shallow hole, maybe 5 mm, for the birds nest and solder bucket. We'll start with a centre drill, with the bare nipple in a tailpost V block:


The centre drill is followed by a through hole drilled 2 mm, and this is followed by a 5 mm hole to a depth of 5 mm for the 'birds nest' that we will form when we fit the cable.




Here's the bar after drilling for the first nipple:


The next job is to part off to the desired length, in this case 10 mm. The finish leaves alot to be desired - I was running the lathe too slow for brass.


Deburring next; notably the cable hole on the reverse of this picture. I use a centre drill to open that hole out a little to catch the open, unsoldered wire ends on the inner cable.

So that's it. I made three out of the bit of bar I had turned to size, to avoid wasting it. One for the front brake, one for the clutch and one for the box of nipples & ferrules. I wonder if I can make ferrules...


No comments:

Post a Comment