photogravity

Most of the folks here on this subforum know that my 1950 Norman Rapide gets ridden the most of all the bikes I have in my stable by a pretty wide margin. Because of that, for at least a few months now I have been considering building another set of wheels for the bike so that I can put the originals on the shelf for shows and have a set of wheels to ride. In any case, a few days ago I unlaced the front and rear wheels that came off a 1953 Ace Roadster and will be rebuilding them into a set of wheels for the Norman. I'll be using Velocity Synergy Rims that will have the silver anodizing removed and then polished. The front hub will be a British Hub Corporation Defiance hub that was also sourced from the old Ace bicycle. Here are a couple shots of the 1953 Sturmey Archer FW Alloy hub that I'll be building into a new wheel along with a couple pictures showing the rims side by side with and without the anodizing and polishing.


1953 Sturmey Archer FW Alloy Hub - 1 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


1953 Sturmey Archer FW Alloy Hub - 2 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


1953 Sturmey Archer FW Alloy Hub - 3 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Velocity Synergy - 1 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Velocity Synergy - 2 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Velocity Synergy - 3 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr

puchfinnland

They polish up nicely, can't wait to see the project complete!

photogravity

Yeah, the one rim that I finished turned out really well. I'm sorry that I didn't take pictures of the hub before I cleaned off the cruft and polished it up. It was *really* bad and I had to scrape the dirt off of it, since the degreaser didn't work at loosening it up.

auchencrow

As long as you are riding that beauty as much as you do, having a stand-in wheelset on it is a good idea PG. Plus, the modern rims seem to be quite strong. and typically have nice wide faces for the brake shoes to grab.

Velognome 

Heart Transplant?.....new kicks

canyoneagle

Nice looking hub you have there. It sounds like a good idea to rotate things out if you want to preserve the originals.

ThermionicScott 

+1. I was concerned going into this thread.

photogravity

After the front fender broke in late November and then popped a rear spoke on my ride with puchfinnland a few weeks ago, the urgency in getting this done rose significantly. The wider rim surface is definitely a plus.

photogravity

I'm just trying to keep her going as long as I can, so having a spare set of wheels around is something that'll keep her kicking longer at least!

pastorbobnlnh 

Dallas,

Have you used the FW hub before? The one on my New World is really finicky. I always make certain I carry the correct size flat bladed screw driver on every ride in order to adjust the indicator screw on the left side. Any suggestions on solving this issue? I've been thinking about going back to an AW hub.

Can't wait to see your wheels built. Are you using 700c sized rims or something else?

photogravity

I was really worried that the rim would take a hard enough hit one of these days where it might get badly bent. Breaking a spoke was bad enough!

photogravity

Yes, indeed! The current hub on the bike is a 1949 Sturmey FW, but with a steel shell. As far as adjusting the left side indicator, I never touch it. At least as I understand it, the slot on the left side indicator is to allow you to tighten the indicator half that enters the hub from the right side. The only adjustments I make to the shifting are from the threaded adjuster on the right side of the hub and that has worked perfectly for me over time. Out of curiosity, what kind of behavior is your hub displaying?

I'm using 700c since there is such a wide selection of tires in that size and because the brakes have plenty of extension to drop 4mm without any problem. Now I'm debating whether to go with whitewall tires or some nice tanwalls. Currently she has whitewalls and they are the shizz!

puchfinnland

I would choose some skin walls, or the Mich tan wall with reflective strips like you gave me.

photogravity

The Fyxation Session comes in black tread and white sidewalls and is pretty reasonably priced. Of course, I could go with old standby Panaracer Pasela, though I have a couple pairs of 28-622 tires sitting around that I could probably use, thought neither are tanwall or whitewall.

rhm

Bob, I to have found the FW to be finicky and don't know exactly why. One solution is to convert the hub to a five speed- this gives you an additional higher gear and makes shifting much more reliable. The only downside is that you need to fit an additional shifter. I would think that's a pretty good fix for the New World, though i would hesitate to do something so radical on something like the Rapide, where the for speed hub and shifter is the original configuration.

Bianchigirll 

scary title but interesting project. I don't mess with 3spds much so why does this one have a chain on one side and an operating rod on the other?

nlerner

I really like the FW hub, but as is true for any of the S-A four-speeds, the trigger needs to have a very strong spring to pull and hold in the lowest gear. As Dallas says, Bob, there's no adjustment to be made on the left side; those two-piece indicators should thread together tight and be left alone. Proper adjustment is to put the bike in the next to lowest gear and have the left side rod be even with the axle end.

Alternatively, you can swap in the guts of an AW into that FW shell and not have to deal with an elusive low-low gear.

photogravity

This is actually a 4-speed hub... The piece sticking out on the left side is only the left end of the indicator rod. All of the shifting is done from the right side of the hub as with a standard SA AW hub.

pastorbobnlnh 

I don't want to hijack PG's thread so I'll start a new thread later when I get around to the New World sometime this winter. In the mean time thanks for the advice and I'll keep these tips in mind until I get back to this project.

Dallas, thin whitewalls are my reaction after re-looking at the pictures.

lostarchitect 

Dallas, the tread title scared me for a second. Glad it's not your actual heart that's at issue!

I agree that a 2nd set of wheels is a great idea for this bike. Looking forward to seeing the end result.

photogravity

As I mentioned a couple months back, I was in the midst of building a new set of wheels for my Norman Rapide. Progress was slow, because I'm slow and didn't much enjoy the process of de-anodizing the first rim. Fortunately after getting some Rooto lye before before starting work on the second rim, the removal of the anodizing went very well the second time around. The Velocity Synergy rims built up better than any wheel I've done so far. The big problem for me was getting the lacing to match the previous lacing on the hubs. For some reason, I can never seem to get the pattern to match without blocking the valve stem on the first try. In any case, I managed to get it right after the second or third try.

The Velocity Synergy rims, while looking a little more modern than the Dunlop Special Lightweight rims, look mostly OK on the bike. The profile is still a little more modern than I would like to see on this bike, but since these are "rider" wheels, I'm not going to complain too much about it as it results in the preservation of the original wheels for future posterity. In any case, since some of you were interested in seeing the end result, I posted some before and after pictures below.


Before Pictures:

Rapide - WMRT Ride - 1 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Rapide - WMRT Ride - 3 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Rapide - WMRT Ride - 2 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr



After Pictures:

Norman Rapide: Burkittsville Ruritan - 4 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Norman Rapide: Burkittsville Ruritan - 5 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Norman Rapide: Burkittsville Ruritan - 6 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr

rhm

That looks pretty good!

Italuminium

very pretty bike. My LBS told me these 4 speed cables are hen's teeth these days, so be careful!

auchencrow

x10.
It's one of my screen savers!

photogravity

Yeah, I agree... If the rim profile was a little different I'd like the wheels a little better, but at least I didn't put Dyad rims on it as that would have been jarring.