Braze-on Housing/Cable Guides

Anyone know of a decent place that could braze-on some shifter cable guides? Apparently, the frame I have is devoid of shifter braze-ons and cable housings (it seems to have a housing for the rear derailer, but nothing on the downtube or under the bottom bracket). If anyone knows of a company or person that could braze-on some guides, that would be great. 

Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Steve Courtright on March 12, 2012 at 10:31am

It's a long drive, but I had a frame modded by the folks at Waterford, in Wisconsin, some years ago when I had a bike repainted.  I do think there are a few folks doing frame work here in Chicago, but don't know any personally.

Permalink Reply by Kevin C Dormant on March 12, 2012 at 10:37am

Owen Lloyd at Blue City Cycles can do it. He's at 3201 S Halsted St. 312-225-3780, though he does his frame building/welding at Bubbly Dynamics.

Permalink Reply by Vondo on March 12, 2012 at 10:42am
I believe the guys over at UV Metal Arts do that too.
Permalink Reply by Kevin Mulcky on March 12, 2012 at 11:06am

There are clamp-on solutions made by Problem Solvers as well...check at your LBS

Permalink Reply by Melanie K on March 12, 2012 at 11:47am

We had thought of the clamp-ons, but were told by our LBS that those would be a temporary solution to our shifter problem since we need more tension in the cable. We are going to try the clamps temporarily, but would like a more permanent solution. 

Permalink Reply by Kevin Mulcky on March 12, 2012 at 1:35pm

Well, if you decide that welding isn't the best option, here are some examples of what you'd need for camp-on cable guides:

shifter mount

cable guides

BB guide

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on March 12, 2012 at 2:50pm

The clamp on ones will be just fine.

Here iare a ton of them @ Amazon- either the Origin8 or Problem-solvers ones will work for you as long as you know  your downtube size.  

Your LBS is all washed up if they tell you these are not a "permanent solution."  Bikes came out of the factory with such clamps sometimes.  Putting braze-ons is going to be expensive and kill your paint -so after spending all that money to have braze-ons BRAZED ON you'll have to spend another couple hundred to repaint.  

How special IS this frame?  You could buy a whole new frame from quite a few reputable makers  for the cost of doing all this. 

Permalink Reply by Melanie K on March 12, 2012 at 3:40pm

Thanks, James and Kelvin. We already ordered a clamp-on one from Amazon. I would hate to have to repaint the frame, it's just special in that I am building my own bike, which makes it special for me :) But I would rather just use the clamp-on and save the expense of re-painting. We've done everything else to the frame, the bike works in every way, except for the tension in the shifter cables which was due to the lack of cable stops. Since this is the last thing to be done, once the clamp comes in the mail, I should be finished and I can reveal my project to the world LOL.  We actually had to double-stick tape the bottom bracket guide to the bottom bracket since there was no hole to screw it in, but that seemed to work just fine. We are having a blast putting this thing together! 

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on March 12, 2012 at 3:46pm

Drilling and tapping the hole in the BB for the cable guide isn't too hard.  I've tapped one that just had a push-pin too just because those are annoying.

You might want to get a set of mickey-mouse eared cable adjusters if you are running an indexed system and put them into your top cable stop clamp-on.  Otherwise you are gong to have a devil of a time keeping them adjusted correctly over time. 

Permalink Reply by Melanie K on March 12, 2012 at 3:57pm

Drilling? Hmm. That's scary to me, but maybe not to my husband.  We did not know about the cable adjusters, and really thank you for telling us- I will definitely get on that and get some of those, too. We've been doing a lot of our own maintenance over the past few years, but this is the first time we have ever actually built a bike from pretty much scratch.  Thank you everyone for your advice! 

Permalink Reply by S on March 12, 2012 at 4:31pm

Check your rear derailleur, you may already have a barrel adjuster that lets you may the fine tuning adjustments.  It'll be a black plastic bit with ridges at the back of the derailleur where the cable first goes in.  Most modern road derailleurs have them and you probably won't need another set if you already have one for your rear derailleur (I don't really think the front derailleur really needs it).  Also, check to make sure your brakes have them as well. It'll help you easily keep things adjusted as your pad wears down, you can always just move your brake cable to take up the slack but the barrel adjusters make life a lot easier.

Melanie K said:

Drilling? Hmm. That's scary to me, but maybe not to my husband.  We did not know about the cable adjusters, and really thank you for telling us- I will definitely get on that and get some of those, too. We've been doing a lot of our own maintenance over the past few years, but this is the first time we have ever actually built a bike from pretty much scratch.  Thank you everyone for your advice! 

Permalink Reply by Nick Butterfield on March 12, 2012 at 8:57pm

I've since removed most of them when i turned her into a single speed, but my '75 motobecane had clamp ons that held up for 37 years.

James BlackHeron said:

The clamp on ones will be just fine.

Here iare a ton of them @ Amazon- either the Origin8 or Problem-solvers ones will work for you as long as you know  your downtube size.  

Your LBS is all washed up if they tell you these are not a "permanent solution."  Bikes came out of the factory with such clamps sometimes.  Putting braze-ons is going to be expensive and kill your paint -so after spending all that money to have braze-ons BRAZED ON you'll have to spend another couple hundred to repaint.  

How special IS this frame?  You could buy a whole new frame from quite a few reputable makers  for the cost of doing all this. 

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