Originally Posted by
bobsyourbike
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
My first coach had raced in the 1940s - and his father raced in the 1920s! - and he told me to always cork my rims and "key" the rim bed (which just meant putting deep scratches across it to give the glue something to stick to.) I stopped doing it decades ago, but your post sure brings back some memories.