Soldering Saturday

The Presta/Schrader Rim Adapter Project

I picked up some brass warshers at Home Depot, took them home and got to work.

First, I reamed out the warshers so the tubing would fit tightly inside them, then I cut off short bits of tubing.



Then I gather my soldering tools together, including the fabulous Weller soldering gun I've had since I built a non-working Knight-Kit Star Roamer short wave receiver in seventh grade. There's a container of rosin flux, and some solder. That flux was kinda hard to find, I finally got it at California Electronics in El Cajon.



I soldered the tops, breathing in plenty of flux and lead fumes.



Next, I wanted to solder the bottoms a little, so I put them into the alligator clips on a "helping hand". Of course the first one FLEW OUT, spattering hot solder. Of course, I was not wearing safety glasses.



So then I tried the tweezers on the next one. It worked well.



And here they are, filed, reamed (again), wire-brushed, and shot with a bit of clear gloss.



Not that impressive, eh?

Next task, when the clear gloss is dry, a test fit!

I am predicting they will need to be trimmed on the warsher part to fit the rims.

I hope the solder will hold. Silver-soldering probably would have been better, but I do not have the facilities, nor the knowledge. I am also thinking that two warshers might have been better, to support the tube/warsher joint. And there might still be too much solder on the one, so that might have to be filed a bit more!

After I got done with all THAT I took a look at the leaker on Jamis. Turned out to be a poorly installed patch, so I trashed the tube, and put a 27 1/4 inch Presta in there. One with no patches, oddly enough. Also, my only spare.

Later!