Classic & Vintage - Drillium Dude's work, properly displayed

I commissioned this wonderful NR derailleur from DD awhile back, and just got it back from the frame shop. This will reside in my shop someday in the far off future, under a mini-spot. It could just as easily reside in the Louvre.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5252/5458238303_e3c0886165.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/76636917@N00/5458238303/)

Very nice.

I was fortunate enough to meet him last week at the Seattle Bike swap. Very talented and nice guy.

Wow!

Wow!

+1

Thanks for sharing that poprad.
(You're a talented dude, DD.)

Dang

DD rocks!

Beautiful work my friend.

Nice framing as well.

That's going to be a shop a few levels above mine...

Now you merely need one or two of embankmentlb's handpainted banners (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/703465-Vintage-Sign?highlight=). Another C&V artisan of considerable talent.

Speechless!

Great stuff. I'm curious about the pulley wheels. Are they replacements?

Great stuff. I'm curious about the pulley wheels. Are they replacements?

+1 I assumed they were polished Bullseye wheels.

Yeah, he put on the bull's eyes he had that were non-operational. Perfect for this display-only custom. He does some fine work, and once I saw it I knew just setting on a shelf wasn't going to cut it.

Beautiful!!! Makes me want to go drill some stuff!:lol:

I remember when we had drilled parts mounted on bikes and used them! Course it snowed more back than, everyone walked to school, uphill both ways, gasoline was full of lead and we played with lawn darts.

Nice work and display.....makes me yearn for a bike to drill.

^ And we didn't wear helmets when we rode our bikes. In fact, the only kid in the neighborhood who had a helmet was the...

Oops. Don't go there.

Poprad, that display case came out beautifully - the brushed aluminum goes perfectly with the derailleur. But you're too modest; you should relate your talents as regards this particular derailleur! I am still amazed at that story...

DD

DD refers to my ham-handed mishap with his creation; despite ordering it as a display-only piece I just had to see if it would articulate. When I tried to move it through the normal range of motion the outer plate which has been so heavily modified bent under the pressure where the spring hits it, literally at a 90 degree angle. Now the spring was wedged into the bend and the whole thing wouldn't move and just looked, well, bizarre. Unfortunatley I didn't take pics.

So, having some exeprience with metal work I decided I had nothing to lose, and that it would likely be going back to DD for repair anyway. I chose to try bending the outer plate back into shape myself. I managed to finagle the spring out of the thing, but now how to make the bend back into the original shape? I used a very small 6" glue clamp, like the kind for glueing woodwork, to ever-so-slowly encourage the metal to bend back. Fortunately for me, the aluminum was ductile enough to accept this without failing and it bent back completely. I was now left with two small bumps on the "rails" of the outer plate where the highest spot had been. To remedy this I took a couple of nesting tire levers, put them through the derailleur sideways with the little high spots right on the bumps, and then used a channel lock pair of pliers to exert enough pressure to flatten the bumps.

At this point the thing looked pretty damn close to what DD had sent me (albeit with some highlight paint loss), but I was worried about putting the spring back in under tension with the now-weakened outer plate. To fix this I cut about 1/16" off the indexing end of the spring, which was enough to allow it to rotate and index against the rivet tunnel instead of the hole it normally inserted into. This effectively reduced the spring tension considerably. All that was left was some minor work with an ignition file and emery cloth, then a bit of detail paint with a perfect match for the orange I found in the nail polish section.

After all that, I wish I had taken a few pics of the process. When the outer plate buckled along the two modified "rails" I thought for sure the thing was toast. Happily Campy used a very soft and forgiving alloy, and it now looks as you see it in the pics, as DD intended. Moral of the story, if you spec something for display only, don't go trying to use it!

I suppose it's all about personal taste and in this area my taste buds are missing.
I do understand the urge to customize things and modify them to serve a need or to gain a cool look.

It was such a cool derailleur stock!
To me drilling out that part is like taking a van Gogh and adding glitter.
Polishing, painting, and framing the undrilled part would make sense to me.

Help me understand why making this part non-functioning is asceticly pleasing.

That is COOL!!!!

I just noticed Jan's comment & it is true! Fun stuff!
That's going to be a shop a few levels above mine...

Now you merely need one or two of embankmentlb's handpainted banners (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/703465-Vintage-Sign?highlight=). Another C&V artisan of considerable talent.

I suppose it's all about personal taste and in this area my taste buds are missing.
I do understand the urge to customize things and modify them to serve a need or to gain a cool look.

It was such a cool derailleur stock!
To me drilling out that part is like taking a van Gogh and adding glitter.
Polishing, painting, and framing the undrilled part would make sense to me.

Help me understand why making this part non-functioning is asceticly pleasing.

I think it's kind of like a J. Pollock painting, you get it or you don't. To me it's one person's expression of taking something like drilling parts to lighten them to the far extreme and past the point of utility. In some ways it's not too different from what the early impressionists did with their art. Most of them were actually quite skilled at rendering accurate images, but they felt the need to challenge perception and move to another plane. I think DD's work is his exploration of the boundaries of self expression channeled through the modification of transportation mechanics.

That, or he just likes drilling sh*t. Either way, I much prefer to hang DD's derailleur than a huge red dot on a canvas.

Oh, and Jan, I will be doing something like that banner myself when my home shop comes to fruition. I'm somewhat of a rank amateur artist myself, and plan to paint something cycling directly onto the shop wall. Playing with the idea of an iconic B&W TdF type scene with a ghosted Campy logo background, but that's just one idea.