Fall 2010 update

I feel like this post is some kind of development plan meeting. The kind you have in the office world. The sort where you sit down with your manager, and proceed to explain all the things you've done in the past half a year.

After some seriously LENGTHY delays, DMT is back on the case. With his lathe up and running, we were able to turn out a bunch of front and rear shells. The hubs have had the bolt mounting holes, and lightening pockets milled, are currently being drilled for spoke holes on the CNC mill. I'm pretty relieved to see them actually looking like bicycle hubs. Check out the video of the CNC in action:

And what they look like with half the spoke holes cut:

Right now we're expecting my 7075 to arrive this week. Then the axles and cones go on the lathe. Dennis also has an absolute PRO CNC tooling trick up his sleeve for the spoke hole chamferring. I can't wait to see how they turn out.

Also, with some help from the key people in my life, I recently did an experiement to determine the failure modes of the stainless bolts I intend to use on the Street Fixed hub. The results were pretty interesting. I've uploaded a PDF to the site if you want to check it out.

Basically to make a long story short, we found that the Stainless torx bolts sourced from Acument in Germany are more than sufficient for Vallie components Street Fixed hubs. Soon I'll do another experiment to determine minimum torque spec for the hub's user guide.

Be sure to check out Project-B's flickr stream for the rest of the experiment (and some rad mountainbiking) photos.

I've also been busy setting up a bike related fabrication shop. My most recent challenge was making a bike rack to mount on a Honda Ruckus scooter. I'm currently making the required jigs to start making porteur style racks for the local cycling community.

Thats about it for now. Sorry I don't have a release date yet for the hubs. Honestly, I know the market is moving in all directions around me, but at this point I'm just glad to see that my design is still a possibility.

Lots to do!