Originally Posted by
Woodrims
I make them for myself as well. I order "best quality" corks from "WidgetCo" (the forum will not allow me to post links until I have at least ten posts) and grind them to shape on a bench mounted belt sander. This works shockingly quickly and it's easy to burn right through them - expect a short, steep learning curve! Once I have them shaped into the appropriate rectangles (I keep a factory rubber pad on hand with which to compare) I cut in the bevels with a coarse hand file. It now takes me a couple of minutes per block, and I only screw up about ten percent of them.
(I had considered the "composite" corks but was afraid that whatever material is used to hold them together would melt onto the rims. It is interesting to hear that another poster uses them. I will have to give them a try.)
Speaking of corks, and on a related note, but still within the Totally Tubular milieu:
When I was first riding, a neat trick was to put a small bottle cork in the ferrules of your rims and cut it off flush, to provide a uniform surface to glue the tire to, and also to keep glue out of your ferrules. An additional benefit was, it pre-loads the nipples and keeps them from unwinding. It's a great trick even today. My 1950 Paramount track bike came with wheels that were corked like this from new. So when I did the complete spa treatment on this bike, I wanted to shine up the hubs, rims, and spokes, so took them all apart and did that, and built them back up even with the original spokes, which shined up surprisingly well. And then re-corked the rims. Knocked them in and shaved off the excess with a razor blade. I have most of that bag of corks left if anyone wants to try this. Say $10 for two wheels worth. Take a look
1950 Paramount Track | Flickr
