other uses for old spokes

They're great drain decloggers and backscratchers,
and useful for fishing wayward cat toys out from
under the furniture.

The handle recently broke off the lid of my
favourite saucepan. But a spoke through the
lid's screw hole helps lift it off without
my getting scalded.

I was wondering what diverse uses for spokes
other people might have come up with.


cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

Tom Keats wrote:
They're great drain decloggers and backscratchers,
and useful for fishing wayward cat toys out from
under the furniture.

The handle recently broke off the lid of my
favourite saucepan. But a spoke through the
lid's screw hole helps lift it off without
my getting scalded.

I was wondering what diverse uses for spokes
other people might have come up with.

Pulling elastomers out of fork stanchions.

(OK, not really a /stretch/, but...)

Tom Keats wrote:
They're great drain decloggers and backscratchers,
and useful for fishing wayward cat toys out from
under the furniture.

The handle recently broke off the lid of my
favourite saucepan. But a spoke through the
lid's screw hole helps lift it off without
my getting scalded.

I was wondering what diverse uses for spokes
other people might have come up with.


cheers,
Tom


A spoke through the screw hole lifts it off?? This NG is getting
weird.
OT but if you ever want to take a lady into the city for a romantic
dinner go to "Acappella" in Tribeca. I was there Saturday night. The
waiters are in black tie and so cute. Fabulous food. Northern Italian.
Very dark in there just in case you are with someone you souldn't be
with. ;-) And the first episode of "The Sopranos" was filmed there.
It really is a great restaurant. Very pricy, but DELISH..... I should
post on a NG for restaurant reviews. Maggieszagat.misc.
http://www.acappella-restaurant.com/index2.htm
All good things,
Maggie

On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 00:36:38 -0700, (Tom Keats)
wrote:

I was wondering what diverse uses for spokes
other people might have come up with.

When I was a kid I was into model airplanes; the control-line kind. At
that time the AMA (Academy of Model Aeronautics) sanctioned numerous
competition classes, among them five classes for pure speed. These
"speed ships" were tiny little models (compared to their engine size)
that had the engines mounted to cast magnesium pans (lower half of
fuselage) and the rest of the model made of balsa and/or basswood.

On many of these designs the upper half was secured to the pan via a
spoke and nipple arrangement. IIRC, eventually the AMA ruled this type
of fastener unsafe and outlawed the spoke-and-nipple.


jeverett3ATearthlinkDOTnet http://home.earthlink.net/~jeverett3

Tom Keats wrote:
They're great drain decloggers and backscratchers,
and useful for fishing wayward cat toys out from
under the furniture.

The handle recently broke off the lid of my
favourite saucepan. But a spoke through the
lid's screw hole helps lift it off without
my getting scalded.

I was wondering what diverse uses for spokes
other people might have come up with.

Scrapers of mud out of sneakers (aka running shoes, aka trainers). The
spoke goes into the fashionable mud collectors, I mean grooves, and
cleans it out.

Pat

"Tom Keats" wrote: (clip) I was wondering what diverse uses for spokes other
people might have come up with.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Spring hooks.

"Tom Keats" wrote in message
...
They're great drain decloggers and backscratchers,
and useful for fishing wayward cat toys out from
under the furniture.

The handle recently broke off the lid of my
favourite saucepan. But a spoke through the
lid's screw hole helps lift it off without
my getting scalded.

I was wondering what diverse uses for spokes
other people might have come up with.

I used a handful to "distress" a cabinet I was building. The customer wanted
it to "look 100 years old." So, among other things, I took a handful of old
spokes and whacked the hell out of it. It did a pretty good job of
simulating 100 years of keys, coins and such being dropped it.

Tue, 5 Apr 2005 00:36:38 -0700, ,
(Tom Keats) wrote:

I was wondering what diverse uses for spokes
other people might have come up with.

I bend them into hooks for hanging rims and built wheels from an
overhead pipe.

I use one for fishing chain through the front derailleur cage.

I have part of one taped to the caulking gun for breaking the seal on
new tubes or digging the old snot out of the spout of previously
opened tubes.
--
zk

(Tom Keats) wrote:

I was wondering what diverse uses for spokes
other people might have come up with.

This one's almost cheating, but if you have ever built wheels you'll
want to build one (unless of course you actually BOUGHT something that
does the same thing).

Take a spoke, cut it off about 6-7" (15-17cm) from the threads, bend a
loop in the cut end, screw a nipple on all the way (the "normal
direction"), and you've built a nipple starter. You should have about
3-4 threads protruding past the nipple. When you're lacing a wheel,
you just screw on a new nipple to this portion, and use the "tool" to
get the new nipple started on the spoke. You can quickly twist the
spoke body to get the new nipple 80% of the way installed, then
reverse the twist to remove the tool.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 00:36:38 -0700, (Tom Keats)
wrote:

They're great drain decloggers and backscratchers,
and useful for fishing wayward cat toys out from
under the furniture.

The handle recently broke off the lid of my
favourite saucepan. But a spoke through the
lid's screw hole helps lift it off without
my getting scalded.

I was wondering what diverse uses for spokes
other people might have come up with.


cheers,
Tom


I have a humming bird feeder hanging from two hooked spokes outside my
living room window.