Is there anyone out there these days doing custom, precision drillium work for hire? I have a few components I'd like to get done.

Maybe, short answer, no.

There's a guy on efbay that posted here awhile back, very cost prohibitive but......

Yes, two sources I know of.
One in the UK, the other in Australia

I will eventually seek out the UK one but not in a hurry $ wise and shipping. Prices are variable, I anticipate $90 for seatpost milling and $120 for chainring milling, $70-100 per lever.

CycloRetro. I believe he is located in Australia.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like any skilled machinist could do the work.

an indexing head and a drill press would be cool for chainrings.

Times have so changed...it used be done with your pops power drill and the bit you lifted from the hardware. I'll put it out there, that precisely measure and drilled holes are not in the spirit of the original.

True enough but lots of sketchy, scary, poorly, overdone examples came from that school.

Once the likes of Mr's Odom, Williams and others of their class including even our very own DD elevated the art form substantially, the widespread homebrew seemed to go by the wayside as it should have imho.

The key operative word here being "could", many "could" but most probably would not want to bother with the tedious process of making it look good.

If you're patient, you can do it by hand. Index the holes off the peak of each tooth. This is a small hole followed by a countersink bit:

I made this simple jig to hold the ring. Clamped it to the press table. I thought about using a nail to index the hole interval, but it was really easy to just mark them and use a center punch.

There ya go

I don’t understand this.

That looks pretty good for a hand job.

Is that your handiwork, John?

Early on it was done freehand and the quality varied greatly, some were good at it some were not.

Much of it was pretty crude so it had a decidedly "homemade" look and vibe to it, far from perfect.

Many also went overboard and it showed when it broke.

I just don’t feel like ****ty work is “in the spirit.”

Wasn’t the purpose to lighten, not to look like sloppy garbage?

Well yes but the two often did not go together, power tools can be a slippery slope.

This thread makes me remember past BF member Jon Williams (RIP) and his beautiful work.
The Retrogrouch: RIP Jon Williams - Drillium Revival

Simply the best. I miss him, too

DD

Found the guy who never tried to lighten his ten-speed with his Dad's drill.

Pretty much game over, nobody picking up where he left off anytime soon if ever.

Chain rings are not that hard to do but you gotta make a jig to locate the ring-bit. I used a lathe center bit because they are stiff and have the countersink built in. The fact that they were not circular rings did add to the fun. I would be afraid to try to it
free hand, one bad hole and you have an ugly mess

Why does everyone assume this can’t be done clean? There’s even a picture in this thread of it done cleanly by hand.

This and my originally quoted post are both ignorant.

”I can’t do something properly, so there’s no way someone else can.”

I believe small parts are harder to do than the bigger stuff. It helps to have a machine shop at your disposal, the time this stuff takes to do it right is insane.
Drillium I did about 10 years ago.





: Mike