Another day of wheel building (and so on).
I received some rims on consignment from a customer.
They're Campagnolo Record rims.
At 390g measured, these rims felt much sturdier than I expected during the break-in phase of wheel building.
The two rims were wrapped together in packaging film,
but there was a tear in the wrap,
and the eyelets on the rim that was exposed have completely rusted.
Just a small difference in storage conditions can cause this.
With these classical low-profile rims, the inner diameters tend to be similar.
Only the spoke length varies slightly depending on hub dimensions,
so old-school bike shops can look at a rim and say from experience
something like "for a 32H six-cross build, that's ○○○mm".
I actually measure the inner diameter of every unfamiliar rim, but this one surprised me.
Because the eyelet area is thick, the rim inner diameter used for spoke length calculation ends up being larger.
It's probably the largest inner diameter rim I've ever measured.
I'm building it with a Record hub, but even for the rear wheel eight-cross build, it easily exceeded 310mm.
On Campagnolo rims from this era,
the manufacturer logo sticker and
the rim model name sticker are applied facing opposite directions.
This isn't a mistake.
The two stickers are positioned roughly opposite each other across the rim,
arranged so that when you orient the rim with one sticker readable right-side up at the bottom,
the other sticker at the top is also readable right-side up.
The front wheel is built.
It's a CX-RAY Italian six-cross build (regular six-cross). The hub is Record. There are many Record hubs out there, but this is the titanium shaft version of the Record from the steel shaft era, just before aluminum shafts were introduced.
The hub appears to have no concept of left and right distinction, but...
↑The titanium shaft version has "CAMPAGNOLO" stamped on one end of the shaft,
so you orient that side to the right when viewed from the direction of travel.
Once you build it with an Italian cross pattern,
the build method itself becomes the left-right distinction and becomes easier to identify.
The rear wheel is also built.
Since I can't do an eight-cross build, I've done a semi-compact four-cross build instead.
It's a Record rear hub from the same era as the front hub, and this one also has titanium shaft spec.
This hub has a right flange width in the 18mm range.
Current 11-speed hubs are similar to this, but when this came out, the cassette body geometry was abnormally tight.
I think if you're going to make the freewheel body interior that thick,
you could have extended the right flange further out.
However, since current 11-speed sprockets will fit on this 9-speed freehub,
you could say it was ahead of its time (even though there was no need to plan ahead like that).
↑The rear hub also has stamping on the end of the right shaft.
Rear hubs from this era came with a 12T-top lockring (left in the image above).
In Campagnolo's philosophy, the lockring belonged to the rear hub,
and the sprockets didn't come with a lockring.
However, when you bought a 11T-top sprocket,
it came with an 11T-top lockring,
so people in the 11T camp would end up with piles of unused 11T lockriings.
From the late 10-speed era onward, lockriings became packaged with sprockets,
and no longer came with the rear hub.
And that's why these old lockriings are so valuable.
↑The current lockring (top) and the old lockring (bottom) differ in thread diameter—27mm for the current and 26mm for the old—so they're completely incompatible.
In the image above, the left shows the threads aligned, so you can see the misalignment on the right.
While this hub's 9-speed freehub can accept 11-speed sprockets,
you must use the old lockring.
Lose it and you're in serious trouble (though I have plenty of spares).
↑With current models, Campagnolo sprocket carriers have the lockring built in,
so the "lockring-shaped cover" that once sat on the carrier is no longer included.
I received some rims on consignment from a customer.
They're Campagnolo Record rims.
At 390g measured, these rims felt much sturdier than I expected during the break-in phase of wheel building.
The two rims were wrapped together in packaging film,
but there was a tear in the wrap,
and the eyelets on the rim that was exposed have completely rusted.
Just a small difference in storage conditions can cause this.
With these classical low-profile rims, the inner diameters tend to be similar.
Only the spoke length varies slightly depending on hub dimensions,
so old-school bike shops can look at a rim and say from experience
something like "for a 32H six-cross build, that's ○○○mm".
I actually measure the inner diameter of every unfamiliar rim, but this one surprised me.
Because the eyelet area is thick, the rim inner diameter used for spoke length calculation ends up being larger.
It's probably the largest inner diameter rim I've ever measured.
I'm building it with a Record hub, but even for the rear wheel eight-cross build, it easily exceeded 310mm.
On Campagnolo rims from this era,
the manufacturer logo sticker and
the rim model name sticker are applied facing opposite directions.
This isn't a mistake.
The two stickers are positioned roughly opposite each other across the rim,
arranged so that when you orient the rim with one sticker readable right-side up at the bottom,
the other sticker at the top is also readable right-side up.
The front wheel is built.
It's a CX-RAY Italian six-cross build (regular six-cross). The hub is Record. There are many Record hubs out there, but this is the titanium shaft version of the Record from the steel shaft era, just before aluminum shafts were introduced.
The hub appears to have no concept of left and right distinction, but...
↑The titanium shaft version has "CAMPAGNOLO" stamped on one end of the shaft,
so you orient that side to the right when viewed from the direction of travel.
Once you build it with an Italian cross pattern,
the build method itself becomes the left-right distinction and becomes easier to identify.
The rear wheel is also built.
Since I can't do an eight-cross build, I've done a semi-compact four-cross build instead.
It's a Record rear hub from the same era as the front hub, and this one also has titanium shaft spec.
This hub has a right flange width in the 18mm range.
Current 11-speed hubs are similar to this, but when this came out, the cassette body geometry was abnormally tight.
I think if you're going to make the freewheel body interior that thick,
you could have extended the right flange further out.
However, since current 11-speed sprockets will fit on this 9-speed freehub,
you could say it was ahead of its time (even though there was no need to plan ahead like that).
↑The rear hub also has stamping on the end of the right shaft.
Rear hubs from this era came with a 12T-top lockring (left in the image above).
In Campagnolo's philosophy, the lockring belonged to the rear hub,
and the sprockets didn't come with a lockring.
However, when you bought a 11T-top sprocket,
it came with an 11T-top lockring,
so people in the 11T camp would end up with piles of unused 11T lockriings.
From the late 10-speed era onward, lockriings became packaged with sprockets,
and no longer came with the rear hub.
And that's why these old lockriings are so valuable.
↑The current lockring (top) and the old lockring (bottom) differ in thread diameter—27mm for the current and 26mm for the old—so they're completely incompatible.
In the image above, the left shows the threads aligned, so you can see the misalignment on the right.
While this hub's 9-speed freehub can accept 11-speed sprockets,
you must use the old lockring.
Lose it and you're in serious trouble (though I have plenty of spares).
↑With current models, Campagnolo sprocket carriers have the lockring built in,
so the "lockring-shaped cover" that once sat on the carrier is no longer included.