Originally Posted by
Dave Mayer
Weyless. I know I have an unlaced, new set of these deep in my hub bin, but I haven't dug that far down in years. Note the cartridge bearing design, which instead of a rubber seal, features some kind of fabric-type material. Asbestos?
Originally Posted by
jdawginsc
I wondered about that. Or is some early nylon webbing to create a better seal. They made some unique stuff.
Originally Posted by
Drillium Dude
Kinda looks like a thin wafer of fiberglass or fiberboard, you know, the stuff similar to computer boards back in the 60s and 70s?
Probably an early, lightweight, and thin dust shield which appears to have been eschewed on subsequent editions.
DD
Originally Posted by
Robvolz
their ad reads, “we seal them with Teflon, which keeps out dust and dirt which is the number one cause of bearing failure.”
except Teflon is a coating, so who knows what the actual substructure material is.
I am going to swap them out. Take them apart and report here.
You guys need to get out a bit more, in the materials science department (@Drillium Dude gets the ding ding ding) -- it's obviously some sort of phenolic (fabric-reinforced sheet with a polymer resin), most likely what's called G-10 or Garolite (epoxy is the resin, typically, and I think fiberglass the fabric for most varieties):
https://www.mcmaster.com/phenolic/
Phenolic has been around for a long time, and I think much of the earlier stuff used cotton fabric, don't know about the resin -- maybe
bakelite? The thicker phenolic sheet is used a lot in electronics, even today, though it's available fairly thin too.
I have a pair of these hubs, though the bearings on one of them spin with a "dry" sound. As to disassembling and servicing, I haven't attempted this yet, but here's a BF thread where various things were suggested:
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...less-hubs.html