1/11/17 4:55 PM

Dan,. I did not know that you had ties in western NY. I also spent a summer (1970) at Bethlehem Steel in Lackawanna, what a trip.

1/11/17 5:18 PM

Ok...maybe I'll go back to using the oms/mobil one mix I've been using since the early days of the forum...back when Hoskin was still here, and Nate and Jaypee were still doing the Jersey Double.

I'm thinking I'll still add the ptfe powder since I ordered it.

And wipe more often. Geez.

1/11/17 6:55 PM

If you're using two chains how about laying the clean one on something absorbent, wrap it laid out straight in newspaper and let gravity work it. Two weeks might be long enough.

I was thinking use a salad spinner, how many seconds would you get before it flew apart?

That vision led to assemble the chain, twist tie it to a wheel and spin it in the room you want to redecorate a la Jackson Pollock

Add a section of old chain long enough to make the chain fit in the channel of the rim, THEN let 'er rip?

These can't be original ideas.

</humor>

1/11/17 7:04 PM

Tom, I grew up in Amherst, just outside Buffalo. I was at BS Corp (that's what the coats said) in '69, after my first year in college. A trip, indeed. I started on the Labor Gang in the Coke Ovens, moved on to wharfman, lidflipper, and worst of all (and highest paying) door cleaner (only for a day fortunately).

A couple years later I was back for part of a summer and rode with the Buffalo Bicycle Club with great riders like Larry Reade (multiple age group nat tt champ) and Ted Smith (won a Euro Pro race in the early '50s). Great bicycle tradition there.

1/12/17 10:41 AM

"...These can't be original ideas."

There perhaps ought to have been a monthly comic strip in Bicycling, showing riders using different methods to clean their chains and otherwise maintain their bikes using home-spun methodry...

In the early to mid-90's I used one of those chain cleaner "boxes" with brush wheels inside. I had a tall, cylindrical, clear settling "tank" that I dumped the dirty solvent into, which then settled to the sludge layer at the bottom, leaving the top-level fluid ready for the next cleaning. I serviced oft-neglected bikes for a cycling coach who, among other things, "organized" a charity ride across the country, so I made efforts to streamline the chain-servicing process.
At some point in time the solvent became so laden with old lube and WD-40 top-ups that I didn't need to actually lube the chains after cleaning! And I had a powerful old canister vac to which I adapted a narrow "guide" on the end of the hose for the chain to pass through. The vacuum had no bag inside and the airflow was directed outside. The lubrication efficiency of the scant remaining oily solvent on the chain became quite a bit better than WD40 over time, and only the introduction of White Lightning around that time (and the thought of the vapors in the vacuum possibly exploding) had me moving on to squeeze bottle lubrication of the diluted sort that can produce a continuous stream directed at the moving chain. The rest is history, 20 years have gone by, and chains still need at least some applied lubrication (though seemingly much less than in the days of yore, thanks to the improved metallurgy, processing/plating and tolerances of newer versions of derailer chain).

I still remember Marc Hoskins's booth at Interbike, hawking mostly obscure bits of high-end European hardware. I recall being keenly interested in the TA aluminum cassette cogs that I don't recall ever seeing again.