I typically lurk here, but this thread was too juicy to avoid the obvious "shim stock" quote. Taken from "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" by Robert M Pirsig, a book that find compelling and try to reread yearly.
"His handlebars had started slipping. Not badly, he said, just a little when you shoved hard on them. I warned him not to use his adjustable wrench on the tightening nuts. It was likely to damage the chrome and start small rust spots. He agreed to use my metric sockets and box- ends. When he brought his motorcycle over I got my wrenches out but then noticed that no amount of tightening would stop the slippage, because the ends of the collars were pinched shut. "You're going to have to shim those out," I said. "What's shim?" "It's a thin, flat strip of metal. You just slip it around the handlebar under the collar there and it will open up the collar to where you can tighten it again. You use shims like that to make adjustments in all kinds of machines." "Oh," he said. He was getting interested. "Good. Where do you buy them?" "I've got some right here," I said gleefully, holding up a can of beer in my hand. He didn't understand for a moment. Then he said, "What, the can?" "Sure," I said, "best shim stock in the world." I thought this was pretty clever myself. Save him a trip to God knows where to get shim stock. Save him time. Save him money. But to my surprise he didn't see the cleverness of this at all. In fact he got noticeably haughty about the whole thing. Pretty soon he was dodging and filling with all kinds of excuses and, before I realized what his real attitude was, we had decided not to fix the handlebars after all. As far as I know those handlebars are still loose. And I believe now that he was actually offended at the time. I had had the nerve to propose repair of his new eighteen- hundred dollar BMW, the pride of a half-century of German mechanical finesse, with a piece of old beer can! Ach, du lieber!" on-topic: my Bleriot has the correct stem/handlebar interface, as does my Waterford, but I have effected the beercan shim on my Xtracycle (Dirt drop to Albatross) it works like a charm and if you prefer you can use a soft drink can instead. Ride on. On Dec 3, 1:00 am, "David Estes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > THANKS BILL! Would the big box chain hardware stores have this stuff??? > > Alternatively, could you mail me a few shims worth? > > DE > > > > > > On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 9:55 PM, Bill M. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > You can make a perfectly functional shim from brass shim stock. Hey, > > they call it shim stock for a reason! Enough brass to make a > > lifetime's worth of shims will only cost you a couple of dolllars. > > 0.0118" would be an exact match for the difference between 25.4 and 26 > > mm, so use 0.012 " shim stock if that's available to you. What I > > could get at the local OSH was 0.010", and it works just fine. I like > > having the slightly softer brass shim rather than steel, I think it > > grabs well. My bars don't slip, and that's what's important, right? > > > The brass is thin enough to cut with scissors (an old pair, not your > > wife's good sewing scissors!) or tim snips, and limber enough to roll > > into shape around the bar. I cut my shim a bit wide, installed it, > > marked the edges of the stem clamp, then trimmed the shim for an exact > > fit and filed the edges flat. > > > Bill > > > David Estes wrote: > > > Any laying around the garage? The LBS people give me the stink-eye when > > I > > > ask, and can't bare to pay $8 shipping for such a little part from RBW... > > > > -- > > > Cheers, > > > David > > > Redlands, CA > > -- > Cheers, > David > Redlands, CA- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
