Exige .. I hadn't come across the tape method before but I will definitely add it to my list for future reference. Thanks. Although tbh, I don't have much fear of the cable ties cutting the bead.
Sev .. Yes, I'll be that bloke who, in 20yrs time, will be wondering if his carbon wheels are still up to the job. Well hopefully I will anyway .. I'm already getting on a bit. If we do get that far I might even send them back to Dymag for testing, if they still exist.
I read in mcn today they got a big private equity cash injection to allow expansion So no, they won’t be, not a f*cking chance, the leeches will have stripped and refinanced and leveraged them to death by then
Everyone .. Its only my personal experience but I would not buy any of the tyre fitting gizmos that are available (apart from the aforementioned Abba bead breaker). If you're only changing the odd tyre they're simply not worth it. Not only are they not really required, they are more likely to damage the wheel and (crucially in my small workshop) they're a right pain to store when not in use. In fact with care, I can leave the cable ties on while I balance the wheel. Having first found the balance point on the bare wheel, I can then spin the tyre on the rim to find the point where the minimum balance weights are required for the fitted tyre. That might be being a tad fussy but at £1k per carbon wheel, its worth a bit of fuss to get minimum lead on there.
Hopefully by then we'll see companies who are normally only doing defence or aerospace NDT branching out and doing things for the layman as more advanced composites become mainstream. there will be a good market in it too, lets face it, when you spend a couple of grand on a set of charcoal wheels, what's two or three hundred quid every four or five years, or when they've taken a bang to give you peace of mind that they're still sound. My friend works at the National Composites Centre in Bristol and has done a raft of work for them. They want to basically reduce manufacturing cycle times to minutes so that they can get in on the whole supercar carbon wheels gig. Whether they'll feel that they will modify their bike wheel tooling to suit is anyones guess as their car wheels are just the carbon barrel with a machined centre and spokes bolted on. To be fair bradders, the owner of Dymag is a bit of a shark anyway, and I guarantee that if he's managed to get the funding for the expansion the next thing he'll try and do is secure a big old OEM contract, say porsche, the woking mob, ferrari or et al, and then flog the whole lot on the back of that.
Exact Fit Tyre Assembly Tape? EF-TAT (tm) I like the Idea Stu, it's brilliant and simple. Do you use tyre soap, or mans milk or anything else to lube your rim up before you keep mrs Dawson happy? (there's an ancient reference for you!)
I find (using a lot of lube) that Palmolive washing liquid works at a budget price (Tesco ownbrand actually) why waste bike and beer money on superficial crap
Hallo! Has anyone tried this , im serioslyn thinking of ordering a kit 13-21 +balancer , sounds like it could be a good aving over time
Great read and very informative. Having just purchased a set of BST wheels it was interesting the read this. Nice one
Excellent write up. I'm new on here, because of finding this thread. Don't hate me but I've had my BST's since 2010 on my Honda & done 33K miles on them so far, but need a little cosmetic repair on the rear one. Just awaiting BST's OK from my pics at the moment. I was wondering if SEV does repairs, as it looks like he works in the industry or did. Or if anyone else can recommend a company that they have used ? I don't think I can send private messages as a newbie, hence this post to an old thread. I used to manufacture pre-preg back in the late 80's for a BP company called Hyfil in Avonmouth, Bristol, we made all the flooring material for the Boeing 757,767,747's at the time. The company was infamous, for the Oxford/Cambridge boat race boat that snapped in two in 84/85 (ish) boat race, just before my time, but we only supplied the material, it was not our fault the boat builder did not use enough material! I made lots of Formula 1 front wing struts for Mclaren & a lot of their bodywork & model racing yacht masts. The rest was just material supply for the likes of Daiwa fishing rods etc. Thanks for any recommendations. Chris.
If you’ve got those skills a cosmetic repair should be nice and easy for you, good surface prep, and a nice bit of resin and you’re good. if it’s structural probably best to wait for Gary to come back to you and see what he says.
Ah well that was nearly 40 years ago & making stuff on mandrels from pre-preg using cutting templates to layup & having a full factory facility was one thing, but I've never repaired any CF in my life ! Would prefer someone who knew what they were doing to do it, just so it gets a very good finish I'm sure I could bodge it, but then it wouldn't look the same
Now that I have thought more about it I thinkit may have been caused by the last tyre fitter that put a new tyre on but that was just before Covid, so bike has not had a lot of use in last 3 years having only done 3K miles since the tyre was fitted. Here's some pics, same sent to BST let me know your thoughts. Apologies for the Blue reflection from my car There is some micro scratching from me removing the rim tapae & some white lines from rim tape adhesive on the 2nd to last pic.
On first impression the barrel seems unaffected and the stressing is more resin / lacquer related as there's no obvious delamination visible. Ther's a lot of UD and material in that bead so wrecking that you've really got to be going some. Its the proof of a good tyre fitter though. You don't need to be a carbon wheel specialist fitter to fit a tire, you just hve to be conscientious and diligent in your work, as opposed to some knuckle dragging mouthbreather ape who relies on his machine to grind the tits off the wheel as he's forcing the tire on there because he can't be arsed to spend the time doing it carefully. Providing that's the case them a repair is possible as it'll be a resin infiltration and clean up. there's an acre of lacquer on these rims so it's more than likely that which has cracked under the cack handedness of the tyre monkey. Honestly I'd have kicked off to the tire fitters and got them to pay for repair or a new rim.
Thanks Sev, if I'd noticed anything at the time I would have kicked off. The last guy that did it, seemed OK, I did check the rim when I picked up the wheel but I didn't see him do the fitting. The thing I hate about H&S BS you can't be here blah blah. That company has stopped doing motorcycle tyres, so choice where I live is very limited. A mate has bought a tyre fitting device, not seen it, but will go look soon. Looks like a repair job then, fancy it ?
Sure no worries. Let me see if my tame ndt guy will receive them and give them a once over just so we can make sure for certain the ply structure hasn't been compromised and after that we'll be good to go.
