Narrowing a White Tracker Ti hub to ~128old
I’d bought this hub cheaply because the NDS axle end was missing (and White Industries doesn’t stock spares for these hubs anymore) and after trying to ride on it with a crudely machined aluminum axle end (I used a drill press as a lathe, but what messed it up was that I forgot to mill the part of the axle that sticks into the dropout, which meant that this thing could not be trued with any degree of precision) put it aside for about 6 months. But I had to pull the wheelset out of my bike mess and try to put it back into service because the 700d CR-18s I had been using finally reached the degree of sidewall wear that was teetering on structurally unsound, and I didn’t have any other wheelsets (or enough components to build a new wheelset) lying around.
So, a piece of .035 5/16ths tubing telescoped into a piece of .028 3/8ths tubing, with a pair of 3/8ths washers to support the hub against the dropout. It’s going to be brazed together to make it one big chunk (maybe I’ll use silver for the fun of it? I’ve got a small coil of silver sitting in the basement, and some silver flux) in the next day or so, but first I’ve got to ride on the wheelset to make sure nothing fails.
Note that 128mm OLD is pretty narrow for a modern(ish) hub. I spoked the NDS side 1x, with the spoke heads out to more equalize the bracing angles – I’m fairly confident that the White hub can deal with this, because when I originally laced up the wheel I laced the NDS so tightly that 4 of the NDS spoke nipples seized and stripped out when I was attempting to loosen them to true the wheel tonight.