Sometimes it pays to put off a job until another day. I had a customer drop off a fork that had a steerer that was too short. he wasn’t in a hurry so I put it aside. Then I had another customer front up with a fork that had a damaged steerer.
Damaged steerer
Years of use. Years of having a quill stem tightened up inside it. It needed replacing. Right I thought. I will jig them up in the Deckel mill and bore out the crown. Why spend hours with a die grinder when you can get it right quicker. Sometimes there ARE more efficient ways to do things. So, cut them off, clamp them in the jig and clock them up vertically. Bore them out to the right size and then off to the fork jig.
Deckel boring of fork crown
More Deckel boring
Ready for a new steerer
Two forks. Two new steerers
The first one was fine. It was a relatively modern fork. The other one came from the 40s. It had ends that were manufactured by squashing the tubing and drilling the right sized hole . When I first built my fork jig I had a very simple dummy axle. Later I made one that would allow me to index the dropouts. I went to the cupboard and found that original axle because there was no way that the indexing one was going to work for that older fork. Never throw anything away
1940’s fork ends
Dummy axle options
However: you don’t ever seem to time things totally right. Just as I got both those forks done and put the milling machine back in to its normal state another set turned up with a similar problem. At least I know I can do it this time
g.duke Handmade Bicycles 