While the sphere stand on the W/NG is a nice factor, I do not use it very a lot as it’s kind of of a nuisance to get it down and again up once more. The stand will not be fairly as proven within the manufacturing facility components books and might be not authentic.
The identical may very well be mentioned of the spring clip, which appears a bit like the sooner kind however is simply too quick – it’s not solely stiff however now that I’ve the panniers fitted, it permits the stand to foul the pannier body bracket.
So, impressed by fellow W/NG proprietor and YouTuber Alan Moore, who compiled a wonderful educational video on this topic, I resolved to make a pair. You should purchase these clips now from varied sources (together with the AOMCC Singles Spares) however I had resolved to make my very own to show that I may.
I began with a easy little bit of wire to develop the profile of the spring:
That gave me the size and the form I would wish and I used this to make a card template. Following Alan’s instance, I purchased a few lengths of CS95 spring metal from eBay, and used the Rothenburger MAPP torch to normalise them, by heating to cherry pink and cooling in air.
This course of left the onerous spring metal comfortable sufficient to drill and to chop to form with the snips.
With the clean lower and drilled I may bend them to form. The primary one took a little bit of faffing round with bits of spherical bar within the vice, pliers and swearing; for the second I welded up this little instrument which made the bending a lot simpler. I left the sharp bend close to the mounting holes till final.
Utilizing the instrument, it was straightforward to make these reverse bends. It’s the truth that they’re so shut to one another that makes bending the spring tough and not using a bars mounted shut collectively.
As soon as I had each springs bent up, I may match them to the bracket on the bike and be certain that:
- The stand can be gripped adequately
- The ends of the spring can be open sufficient to permit the stand to be pushed in
I messaged Alan via YouTube to ask if he had had any issues with the bends opening throughout warmth therapy – he hadn’t (and nor did I).
I constructed slightly barrel furnace out of a 5 litre beer keg, some ceramic insulation, a hearth brick and a few hearth cement. Step one was to warmth the springs cherry pink; you possibly can see the torch is low on fuel on this image because the shroud is glowing. I swapped fuel cylinders after this and used the almost-empty cylinder for tempering.
Subsequent, quench in oil:
After cleansing the oil off, you possibly can take a look at the hardness with a file. The file simply skates off the hardened metal and won’t mark it. Subsequent, you clear the oxide off with Scotchbrite so as to see the colors type throughout tempering:
Subsequent job is to mood the entire spring to 350°C, which is the blue color you see right here and quench in water to cease the method. One among these springs is polished publish warmth therapy, the opposite is straight out of the water tub. They definitely sound springy after tempering!
Here is a fairly hasty image of it in place – the truth is that is the primary match although it took some time to get it there. The previous springs had been fitted with some oddball screws and wing nuts, presumably 3/16″ BSW – I feel I will need to have executed my earlier, pre-heat therapy trial match utilizing these screws, as a result of the springs do not match with the 1/4″ CEI bolts I’ve in there now because the holes are tight on the bolts and are usually not fairly in the best place. Foolish boy.
So, having spent ten minutes with a grinding wheel within the Dremel shifting these holes slightly inboard and opening them to about 7 mm had the springs becoming simply – or extra simply. If I’ve to make one other pair of springs, I’d permit a bit extra space for the nuts & bolts – the one closest to the digicam is a bit tough to get to.
And it really works! The spring is far, a lot simpler to make use of than the previous one which implies the sphere stand will get used extra usually – at present it’s a must to align the stand with the spring and kick it to get it in, which is difficult if you’re on the bike. Proper now, with solely a few exams the spring mood appears to be acceptable – although I’m wondering if I’ve overheated it – it is springy however not overly robust. Lastly, you possibly can see from the image that the sphere stand is now away from the pannier body.
In order that’s it – all executed for the second. I’ll however a security chain or maybe a zipper tie across the discipline stand and the pannier body, to maintain the body away from the street ought to the spring break or the stand bounce out of it. We’ll see the way it goes.
