Blacksmith Pawel, an award winning metal sculptor and world class martial artist shapes the ten inch long gusset he will be tig welding to reinforce the cracked area of my rim shown below.
Steeped in experience, he was able to reposition the jig you see here as he also followed his welds progress down the rim with one of his specially shaped hammers..
Nor was he content with a few strategically placed welds. He expertly flowed the metal so that a seam was barely noticeable as I show you in the following photo.
Excited to put his work to the test against these rough Irish back roads, I know the only way it will fail is if I make a mistake with the spoke tension when I re-build the wheel. Or as Jim Spillane explained to me after I got this area too tight when I was increasing the tension against a crack i did not know was there, my wheel won’t taco from spokes that are too right, the rim will crack.
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