Richard,
I've received a few other questions and comments about
Francisco Cuevas's brake cable guides, so I've included the CR
list on this reply. I hope you don't mind.
Now, please bear in mind that it's been about 25 years since
I visited the Cuevas shop in the Astoria, Queens section of New
York City - so my recollections might be missing a detail or
two.
The Cuevas shop was actually in an old row house in a
working class part of town - and having already been a frame
builder for many years (and on three continents) Señor Cuevas
was very much "old school", even by the standards of 1983.
So my recollection of his brake cable guides is that he did
it entirely by hand. Really, when I first saw him make one, I
was totally surprised. He simply grabbed a piece of automotive
brake (or perhaps fuel) tubing in one hand, his hacksaw in the
other, and made a diagonal cut near the end of the tubing.
Then he cut a little slot, part way through the tubing. (This
was just for decoration.)
At this point, he took a couple of hand files to properly
shape the cuts he just made, and to clean things up. Then he
made another diagonal cut, opposite the original one, and this
separated the newly made (but semi-rough) cable guide from the
remainder of the tube.
Now he took a the hand files and cleaned up (and shaped) the
side that was just cut. He might have held the little cable
guide in some sort of mandrel, but I just don't remember. The
entire process seemed to take about 5 minutes per cable guide.
If he flattened the bottom of the guide (I just don't remember
if he did) it must have been with some simple tools such as a
mandrel and a hammer.
Perhaps one of the frame builders on the list CR visited the
Cuevas shop and really paid attention to the techniques he
employed. Or... perhaps someone has been using similar
techniques all along.
Cheers,
Fred Rednor - Arlington, Virginia (USA)
> Fred,
> I certainly hope he makes them quicker than I was able to!!
> It took me about
> three hours in all and then I crushed the thing during
> brazing by holding it
> with plyers that were too large while letting the guide get
> too hot. But, I
> was able to straighten it our pretty quickly and get it
> attached. Too much
> work for one little part, but what are you gonna do? By the
> way, can you
> discribe how Francisco fashioned his. I used a grinder to
> rough it in,
> files and sandpaper to finish it. The hard part
> surprisingly, was getting
> the bottom flat, to match the other two.
>
> Thanks for the note Fred.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Richard Long
> Temecula, CA
>
>
> >From: Fred Rafael Rednor <fred_rednor@yahoo.com>
> >To: II LONG <r4959l@msn.com>, classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> >Subject: Re: [CR]Re: Top tube cable guides for 1980
> Motobecane Grand
> >Touring (II LONG
> >Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 11:35:14 -0700 (PDT)
> >
> >Richard,
> > You might be interested to know that the noted frame
> builder
> >Francisco Cuevas made his own brake cable guides out of
> >automotive, stainless steel brake tubing.
> > I saw him make some on a couple of occasions. He did it
> all
> >by eye without using a pattern.
> > Cheers,
> > Fred Rednor - Arlignton, Virginia (USA)
> >
> >--- II LONG <r4959l@msn.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Well, the painter was waiting with breath held while I
> > > searched every site
> > > for vintage parts I could find, plus going through a
> friends
> > > warehouse of
> > > almost 800 old bikes and came up with nada, zip, zulch.
> So I
> > > made it myself
> > > and it turned out nicely thankyou very much. The painter
> was
> > > incredulus,
> > > "You make this!" I would never have attempted such a
> thing
> > > if I hadn't
> > > spent the last six months studying the Paterek
> Framebuilders
> > > Manual. The
> > > guides appear to be stamped from flat stock and rolled
> into
> > > shape. However,
> > > I chose to use stainless tubeing and shape it using a
> pattern
> > > made with tape
> > > applied to one of the originals and transferred to the
> new
> > > tubing. I'm not
> > > a silver brazer by any means, or for that matter a metal
> > > worker at all up to
> > > now, but managed to get this piece attached successfully.
> > > Sense I intend to
> > > use the bike myself and not sell it as vintage, I'm not
> > > concerned with this
> > > method. So please ignore my request for this guide.
> > >
> > > Richard Long
> > > Temecula, CA
> > > USA
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