Somethink like this?? I think this is the future of the unis!!
Walk you must learn, before you fly, young Jedi.
Any updates on your progress? You’ve had your mill for, hmm, a month now. What’s come of it? I’m dying to ride your creations, or at least hold the camera whilst you pound them against the concrete 
Dear Monociclos;
As they say in the South, that might could work. It would only have 90 degrees of movement in which to tighten, instead of the usual; almost 180 degrees. Also, the lever would then be exposed for possibly catching on a shoe (forward or backward) and coming un-done. I’ve been thinking about something like that design for Mark II.
Had a thought about monociclos design while i was asleep, if he manafactured the lever so that it was wide with a split down the middle then it could fold down around the sides of the frame i.e. folding to the right in his second diagram. The lever would then be completely protected friom damage or accidental opening, you;d just have to be careful that the inner fork of the lever didn;t interfere with the hub/spokes.
Dave
Hi Jim, I am in the middle of building a new coker and I would like to use your quick release bearing holders. Would you be willing to sell me a set? If you would please send me a PM or email me with the details. I hope you are planning a telluride trip this summer.
Cheers, Dan.
Jim_Rob,
The shaft collar P/N you mentioned has a 1.5" ID, did you machine this out to 40mm?
Alternatively what is the ID / OD of your bearings?
Thanks
Keith
The truth is that the functional angle is 90 degrees but here you have another design.
Hi Keith;
Yes, You need to put them on a lathe and bore them out to fit. The collar needs to be shimmed so that it’s round, but that wasn’t too hard to do, I just used a couple of washers. Then you just need a lathe with a boring bar, a fairly standard fixture on most lathes. If you bore it out until the bearing you are using just slips in, that seems to work just fine.
We have done both 40 and 42mm OD bearings and they have worked very well (not sure what the ID is, they came with the hubs).
Moniciclos, the first pic is what I was planning on doing.
Jason: I’ve had it for about 3 weeks, and am still building up tooling (I just got a vise a week ago, it took a week just to square the head and get holddown hardware). I could make another frame similar to my last trials frame, but I’m not very happy with the design. If you want to give me plans for a frame you’d like to see made, I’d be open to making it. Right now it’s still just setting up shop, though.
Another improvement:
QR bearing holder 2.0
I resurrected this thread because I’m working on version 2.0 (see below). It’s main features are; it has an integral lever so it is even easier to use, and it’s aluminum. There are plans to add these to a frame, but there are a few bugs to iron out first. Those of you who have worked with vacuum hardware will recognize this as a KF-25 quick-release clamp, bored out to fit (40 or 42mm). Sorry the picture is a bit out of focus.
I saw the photo first. I was wondering what looked so familiar about it. The stock KF hardware is available in SS or aluminum. Which are you going to try to weld to a frame?
As far as I have found, they don’t make a nice quick release version in steel, so we are going to try an aluminum set. I’m too cheap to buy a KH frame so I got one of the Torker 29" AL frames (I wanted a rounded crown, the knees aren’t getting any younger). One of the things to work out is whether or not we will need to re-heat treat the frame or if age hardening will be enough. I’m inclined to try heat treating it myself. Do you know any engineers I could ask about this?
My concern with aluminum would be the thin wall of the KF-25 clamp. Welding small aluminum parts takes a lot of skill. I’ll look around tomorrow to see if I have any of the clamps in stainless. I am pretty sure that most of the clamps we have are stainless but they are not of the spring variety. They close with a swing bolt and a wing nut. I think they are formed, not machined. If there is a materials guy on the forum I can’t remember who it is. Doug Massey comes to mind but he may just be some hack engineer like me.
Here are Kurt J. Lesker’s machined SS KF clamps. I’m sure Varian and Huntington have variations of the same thing but I buy mostly from Lesker so I’m familiar with them. I thought the clamps we have are cast or formed SS but, as I said, I’ll check tomorrow.
Oh! Those aren’t cheep!
Thanks Greg - I was a bit worried about the welding too. Also don’t know what kind of AL it is, 6061 would be ideal, then it will heat treat.
I have seen the SS wingnut variety of KF clamps, it may be possible to retro-fit the spring assembly onto a SS clamp if it is the right geometry, it would just require another hole and spring pin on the lever of spring side.
How about that? All I could find on any of the apparati or in the spares or in the vacuum leak detector supplies were aluminum clamps. I always thought they were stainless. Well, at least you know Lesker supplies stainless KF-25 clamps.
How about making the lower cap it’s own lever, that way it could provide some additional leverage?
OR
Have a lever either side, so two time 90 degrees.
Personally I’d like the lower lever design for it’s simplicity and leverage, though that lever would need to conform better to the shape of the bearing cap.
How about designing the lever as a “grind” pad, this way it would be burly enough for muni. In most cases folks wouldn’t really have an abuse problem in muni since we’re not grinding as much as park riders. My lower bearing covers are all pretty fresh looking…
The best part would be if somene could design a quick release that would work with the existing frames, i.e. buy a quick release bearing cap. Think of it as having a hinged bolt on one side, the other side is a bolt with a lever, the cap is slotted on the lever side for “unclipping” the cap.
looks very cool and slick, I just finished my qr clamps for my stainless steel 29er. some pics are on my profile