On this boy's bike I'm building, I had to use a set of Weinman 605 brakes, to get enough brake reach.

The frame originally used 600A rims (540mm) with Mafac center pulls, which have a long reach. Now it has narrow 26" MTB rims (559mm) but still needs a medium reach.

The thing is, it has these pretty Shimano 600 tricolor FD and RD, and there are a couple nice sets of matching 600 tricolor brakes at the local bike coop, fairly cheap . . . They would look grrrrrreat! But they are short reach, too short - I've tried.

I was thinking of making another effort to use the 600 tricolor brakes, by making a homemade drop bolt. I've seen the Sheldon Brown page https://sheldonbrown.com/home-drop.html but to my eyes, that arrangement is just too ugly.

Has anyone come up with an elegant, sleek dropbolt that can be made with basic tools? I have stuff like files, hacksaws, Dremel, drill press, taps, etc. Alas, no milling machine or other fancy gear.

brass L-bracket for shelves from home depot or similar.
You can either cut one in half for a fairly stiff double plate design that will hold only the brake, or you can use two of them in a "Z" shape so you can mount fenders and/or rack onto it.

I would use some aluminum bar stock. Cut off a piece. Drill 2 holes though it as the proper spacing. And then round off the corners and possibly polish it up to look nice.

What about running some nice Tektro long reach calipers? I mean if your sticking on some stuff that's in decent condition but you've got some makeshift setup to make the calipers work. You can find them fairly reasonable and won't look out of place.

The Weinman 605s look decent already, they are all polished up and purty, and fit correctly with no drop bracket / bolt. Tektros would look a bit nicer, but not a whole lot nicer.

The real upgrade - from a looks point of view - would come with the Shimano 600 tricolor brakes to match the tricolor FD/RD and Shimano shifters and get that racy short-reach look. But, as you say, the extra purty will get cancelled out by the added ugly unless I find an elegant solution to the drop bracket / bolt.

I don't want to do the "two plates with spacers" thing. Even when done very nicely (I've seen some examples while searching BF) it still looks a bit improvised, especially as the drop gets larger. I'm thinking about an aluminum block, that clamps the brake bridge tube (kind of like an open face stem clamps a handlebar, but the clamping bolt goes through the bridge tube).

I would also have to find an elegant solution for the fork. Here I'm thinking a short (1.5"?) section of thick-walled aluminum tube that fits inside the bottom of the fork steerer tube and is secured using the existing brake mounting holes on the fork, then the brake caliper can be mounted to the protruding lower part of the tube.

I've found commercial dropbolt sold on Aliexpress.com. It may take several months to get one due to slow shipping. Actually, I've found two of them. Links are below:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Bike...9-e6174f80d4b2

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Road...608.0.0.KDv84Y