there was a recent exchange between our esteemed colleagues Chuck Schmidt and Hugh Thornton; I'd like to comment on a couple of the comments: <snip> HT: By chance I acquired a bike with these hubs and they > had Nuovo Tipo skewers and I am now totally convinced that Nuovo Tipo is > what they are. As far as I can tell with the hubs built into wheels, the > shape is identical to Record: at some point I shall have them apart and see > if there are any internal differences. Don't N T have smaller balls?
CS: Nuovo Tipo have stamped steel races rather than the more expensive machined races of the Record hubs.
HS: I offer this as a question: Looking carefully (but not microscopically) at my Record hub races (and cones), I've always had the impression that they had ground surfaces, not "machined" in the sense of cut (as with a lathe)). The difference sounds arcane, but my memory is that Henry Ford learned early on that ground surfaces respond quite differently to rolling balls, and are much more durable. Does anyone have facts on this?
<snip>
HT: The other goodie (I think) on the bike is a Gnutti cotterless crankset. The > bad news is that I can't unscrew one of the crank retaining bolts without > wrecking it (does anybody know anything better than penetrating oil to > remedy this?) and then I don't have a crank extractor that fits. Are these > available or have they all long disappeared? Is one totally doomed if the > axle bearing surfaces are pitted? CS: The left side crank bolt (allen head) on the steel Gnutti splined cranks is a _left hand thread_!!! You can rig up a gear puller to pull off a steel crank and, if you're careful, not even gouge the crank up.
HS: Long ago, I was asked to revive a disassembled Herse tandem, fully lugged and fully chromed (with elliptical section bb tube!). To the best of my memory, the herse cranks/bb also used a LH bolt on the left side. Did anyone else think of Tracy Kidder's book "Truck" and the LH threads on his Dodge pick-up LH wheels? A distinction that made no functional difference? (let's not start a truck thread!).
harvey (LH) sachs
mcLean VA