Thursday, September 06, 2012

Tale Of Two Victories

Well, yesterday was a day of two small victories, but I'll take those victories where I can get them, ya know? The first up was a "take two" on the stove/pot stand test firing.

Brought water to a boil in 10 minutes
The new pot stand was made from a can of Bush's Baked Beans. I cut it down, then drilled six holes near the edge of the opening where I can use these stainless steel spokes I modified as support for the cup, or as in this case, the stainless steel martini mixing cup.

I placed the alcohol stove I made inside the bean can, then filled it with fuel. The nice thing here is that if I spill some fuel, it stays contained in the bean can. Then I lit the stove. It gets going rather easily, by the way.

Then I threaded in the stainless steel supports through the holes I drilled, then the cup went on top. I had enough water in it to make a nice, standard cup of coffee. Then, I waited...

It took about ten minutes to get a "roiling boil" going on, so I was pleased. The stove and pot stand are totally stable too. Not like attempt #1! That's for sure! This should cook anything well, as long as it is for one, and the pot I use isn't bigger than the pot stand in diameter. I plan on using a cup anyway. Smaller, lighter, and forces me to pack less.

I snuffed out the stove easily by dumping out the boiling water and turning the cup upside down over the stove-pot stand. The stove, which had been burning for 20 minutes, still had plenty of fuel left inside of it, so I figure I could have cooked up another boiling cup of water, or two, easily. Then I discovered the spent Foster's can I tried my first stove construction with fits neatly over the bean can with a bit of slight modifications to both cans. Now I have a sleek, neat, lightweight storage system for all the cooking stuff.  Victory #1.....

Got 'em set up and rolling!
With that under my belt I moved on to the Velocity A-23 wheels and Clement X'Plor USH tires I had been wrestling to set up tubeless over the past.....what has it been now? A month? Nearly so, I think.

Well, some consultations with my good buddy, MG, gave me some new ideas to try and after applying those, I had some good signs that I was on the way to success there. Overnight pressures held up, and after a three day pressure test, the tires weren't flat. Good.

I decided to take the wheels out for a ride Wednesday, since it was very nice out, and I had no other pressing things to do. I headed straight out North of town. On the way, it was apparent that the brakes were not happy with the new wheels. I had REALLY LOUD noises from the front and back. I decided to get out into the country before dealing with it though.

Funny thing was that by the time I got out of town, the front had bedded in and was fine. The rear wheel brakes were horrible, chattering so badly I thought my nether regions were going to go numb if I used the brake. I stopped by the big rock, namesake for Big Rock Road, and dug out my tools. 

After several attempts, I finally struck upon a reverse toe-in set up that was really quiet, so I went with it, then rode on in back to town. Tubeless wheels set up, and brake noises subdued. Victory #2.

3 comments:

MG said...

Two for two... That's the definition of a pretty good day. Especially when you get to throw a ride in with it all!

I'm glad everything is working out with those wheels. I figured it would sooner or later... Persistence pays.

Have fun, my Brother.

Cheers,
MG

Jay said...

My boss had the same issue with his new A23's made in 'Merica....he tried acetone on the rims, foward and reverse toe and they still squeaked....he finally put some miles in and got them a little gritty and they were perfect...weird, to me they seem to build up a little rougher than the Austrailian counterpart as well

Guitar Ted said...

@Jay: My Aussie A-23's did the same squeaking thing though. I think it is an anodization thing, which if you give that some thought in regard to your boss's experiences, makes sense.

We used to have similar issues with the fancy-pants ano rims of the early 90's before machined brake tracks came into vogue later on. You just suffered until the ano wore through, or you hit the rims with Scotchbrite outta the box.