We often re profiled levers to accommodate smaller
hands or in the case of some Universals we would reshape them so they
were more comfortable for braking from the hoods.
To straighten a lever like Weinmann (or Diacompe)
we would just install it on the bars and then take a seat post (I recall
this being a long Schwinn post) slide it over and then just move them out.
With MAFAC levers they had such a long reach we
would bend them back so smaller hands could reach them.
This was all well before the rise of
Liability insurance or bus loads of lawyers of course.
BOB FREITAS
BIKE SPOT secrets revealed in MILL VALLEY, CA USA