And now I need to sew up a proper saddlebag
Since my last comment on the saddlebag support, I worked on using the pieces of scrap aluminum I had lying around the house, but without success. So I then went back to ebay and bought a couple of feet of ¾×1 6061 stock, then cut off about 3 inches and drilled, sawed, and filed it into the proper shape to fit the saddle rails without fouling the seatpost. I finished that work up tonight, and all that remains is to drill and tap a couple of small holes for setscrews (to clamp into the saddlebag support rails to keep it from tilting and/or falling out), pot the rails into the clamp with epoxy or some sort of rubber cement (to keep moisture from getting in and having a happy corrosion festival), and buy a low-profile nut instead of the partsbin nut I’m currently using to hold the thing together (the partsbin nut stands quite tall, and, you guessed it, fouls the seatpost.)
And then I’ll probably nuke it with boeshield or framesaver, because it’s going to be a while before I have enough money to visit a powdercoater and get the whole bicycle painted a more midlifecrisis red.
Oh, yeah, and I’ll also need to sew up a saddlebag. And I’ll need to do that before friday, because with any luck I’ll be able to go out for a nice long ride on Saturday morning, and I’d like to be able to keep my handlebar bag from being quite so ridiculously overstuffed as it was the last two times I went out for a R200 or so.
(My only comment on the regularity of the saddlebag support is that some of the irregularities will be hidden when I sew up my (also irregular) saddlebag, and I did it myself at a considerable savings over buying a Carradice Bagman. The gleaming chrome on the Carradice support is pretty, but it’s not $47+shipping’s worth of pretty.)