In a message dated 6/25/03 12:30:33 PM, Martin Needleman writes:
>Are these sellers nuts or is it true that, in the old days, people used
>to repair their tubular tires? If so, I'm certainly going to regret
>trashing all those punctured Italian hand-made silk sewups.
Assuming Martin Needleman isn't 'needling' us... yes, they're repairable ;)
When I was a poor college student I always repaired sewups, couldn't afford not to... a good tubular cost as much as a car tire. Oh wait... they still do. Anyway, the repair itself isn't so tough if you're good with a needle and thread or a leather stitching tool. The important (and sometimes frustrating) part was finding the hole so that you didn't have to unstich the whole tire, just a small area around the pucture. But finding the hole could be a whole lot tougher than with a clincher tube... If the hole was large (i.e., visible in the outer part of the tire itself) or a piece of debris was still stuck in the hole, you were lucky. The cursing started when the puncture was very tiny... If you used the usual technique of dipping the tire in water to hunt for bubbles, the air wouldn't come out the hole... it always took the path of least resistance... which was around the inside of the tire and out the area around the valve stem. I finally figured out that with a couple of blocks of wood and C-clamps I could sometimes isolate the valve stem area and had a better chance of finding the leak. When the time comes to sew the tire up again (and the string you took off the tire isn't long enough to do the repair), you might have a hard time finding string that is thin and strong enough and doesn't stretch. I used dental floss quite a bit, but you can also just grab some string off an old tire... most tubulars were sewn with a chain stitch so if you grab a loose end from the right direction you can pull it out with one tug.
Robert Anderson writes:
>I usually do (sewup) repairs in front of the TV, so it's not a total waste
of time.
So what's not a waste, the tire repair or the TV watching?
Bob Hovey
Columbus, GA