Glueing tubulars [the tubular thread]

[bikeboy1tr]

I have been using Vittoria for many years and have never had to prestretch them as far as I can remember. I have also used Schwalbe and Tufo with no real hassles. I have a Michelin that is going on in the near future so we will see how that one goes. I have tried other glues as well and keep coming back to the Vittoria glue. Once I have the tire mounted I put maybe 50 psi and then give it a spin to see where it will need to be straightened. Usually you can squeeze the tire up off the rim with your hands and move it over in the areas where you see it crooked. Pick up the rim and give it another spin to inspect for straightness. Once its straight I will pump 100psi and let it sit over night and pump it to proper pressure in the morning.

[Calnago]

@KCoookie: Thanks for the reply. It made me laugh as I hope mine did you. And with enough time and therapy your daughter may still have a chance to grow up to lead a relatively normal life despite the past week’s trauma.

Re the glue remover, I’m trying out some Effetto Mariposa glue remover for the first time as I write this. I can get it over here. The schwalbe stuff can’t be air freighted over here I guess, and Schwalbe isn’t bringing it into the country. The Effetto stuff seems like it might work ok as long as there isn’t layers upon layers of glue on the rim. It’s not flammable and you can use it indoors, which I’m doing right now. Trouble with a lot of these things is that they rarely work as well as the products with flammable stuff in them. I don’t smoke so it’s ok, right?

Just lettin’ it do its thing now. I’ll check back with it in a couple of hours or so.

[dgasmd]

After all these years gluing tyres (close to 3 decades), I can honestly say it is simpler than I always read here. Stretching tyres at 140 psi on old rims for 1 week seems to work well, except for Conti Comp. those tyres are made by satan himself, and he charges at least a finger and 2 nail beds for each install! Used tape for a couple of years and it is extremely simple and convenient when doing it at home, but no the same on the road. I carry a pre-glued/stretched tyre (never a Conti Comp). Veloex seem to be the easiest to go on followers by Vittoria. I use Conti Comp these days for longevity/cost/resistance reasons mostly. I pre-glue several at the same time and stretch the heck out of it for 1-2 weeks. Frankly, I can’t tell you I feel the stretch at all!!!

[beanbiken]

I know it's not perfect but I do like the self leveling/aligning properties of the water based Vittoria............. just don't get it on your brake tracks as it is a damn s##t to get off as it just seems to stay tacky/slimy. I have a fair amount left so will continue to use it until depleted and then maybe back to Mastik One???

BB

Hey mate.
That's what I used first, does get every where as the bike mechanic found out, but was easier to align the tyre.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

No good............ ??

[KCookie]

@KCoookie: Thanks for the reply. It made me laugh as I hope mine did you. And with enough time and therapy your daughter may still have a chance to grow up to lead a relatively normal life despite the past week’s trauma.

Re the glue remover, I’m trying out some Effetto Mariposa glue remover for the first time as I write this. I can get it over here. The schwalbe stuff can’t be air freighted over here I guess, and Schwalbe isn’t bringing it into the country. The Effetto stuff seems like it might work ok as long as there isn’t layers upon layers of glue on the rim. It’s not flammable and you can use it indoors, which I’m doing right now. Trouble with a lot of these things is that they rarely work as well as the products with flammable stuff in them. I don’t smoke so it’s ok, right?

Just lettin’ it do its thing now. I’ll check back with it in a couple of hours or so.

Yes I did certainly have a chuckle.
A LBS sells the Mariposa which I was going to purchase but after googling and finding the awesome schwable glue remover which you love so much and CANT get hold off, sorry to rub it in, no pun intended. Lol, I decided to stock up.
I know the first two tubes I got came by air from Korea as they told me they had delays with customs, so as you love it so much I will go to my local post office and out of curiosity will ask if it can be sent to you. There's no harm in asking.
Just did a last clean of the rim, then for my wife to ask if I'm going to give it another go. Ummmm decisions.

[KCookie]

I know it's not perfect but I do like the self leveling/aligning properties of the water based Vittoria............. just don't get it on your brake tracks as it is a damn s##t to get off as it just seems to stay tacky/slimy. I have a fair amount left so will continue to use it until depleted and then maybe back to Mastik One???

BB

Hey mate.
That's what I used first, does get every where as the bike mechanic found out, but was easier to align the tyre.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

No good............ ??

Definitely works ok mate, bond was good. Just was a nightmare removing the glue, seems a lot harder to clean up than other glue. Only need one layer and only an hour wait. It's very watery so a little messy.

[Calnago]

Update on using Effetto Mariposa Carogna glue remover for the first time...

Two wheels, two experiences...
Wheel #1: Bontrager Aeolus 5. Two days ago I finally got around to redoing a wheel that had such a bad imbalance to it that the wobble was disconcerting while riding at speed. The tire was terrible and the glue job awful, so it was time to strip things down and start over. I’m not 100% sure, but I do believe the tire had been glued with Conti tubular glue as opposed to Vitoria mastik one. Conti glue just seems to harden up between rim and tire whereas mastic one stays quite pliable. But the key thing about this glue job was simply that it was uneven and way too thick. Anyway, I was actually looking forward to trying the Effetto remover on this wheel. What I like about it is it’s consistency and gel like ability to be able to be put on thick and it would stay put for the most part while you set it aside to do its thing before coming back for removal. Well, it wasn’t as easy as I was hoping and took a couple rounds, a lot of waiting, and at the end I called it good before actually getting the bed completely glue free looking like new. It was good enough and better than what most people consider “ready for glue”. I don’t like to let old glue build up layer after layer. After all, it’s old. But I do get why complete removal is often not done and that’s simply because removing tubular glue from a rim is without a doubt the worst and most time consuming thing about tubulars.

Wheel #2: Campy Bora Ultra Two. While I was at it I decided to get around to a set of my Boras that needed new shoes. Amazingly the experience was night and day different from Wheel #1. The rim bed just had kind of an even dusting of dried mastic one on it for the most part. I had glued these initially. Two thin layers on the rim, one on the base tape (Veloflex Roubaix 24mm). Well, I put on a thick coat of Effetto all the way round around 3pm, and came back after dinner around 7pm to see how it looked. I just went around the entire rim scooping off the goop with my trusty specially curved and ground fine butter knife which just happens to fit the curvature of the rim bed (yes we “lost” it long ago, no idea how one loses a fine butter knife, but as far as I was concerned we never used it anyway).
Well to my surprise it was a 5 minute job at best. Cleaned off the residue and I’m good to glue. What a difference from Wheel #1. The difference I believe was in the thickness of what you’re trying to remove. Thin thin thin. You do not need a bunch of layers on the rim, or worse... one thick layer, which is I suppose what a bunch of layers ends up as once all dried and cured. Layering just allows you to build up a thick end result, evenly. I have another set to do from scratch but if it goes as well as this one did then I’m a fan. Going to remove some Vlanderens (27mm) and try some Specialized S-Works Turbo 26mm, which are pretty equivalent to Arrenberg 25’s.

[KCookie]

Thanks for the feed back Calnago, it's good to know the product works well. Would you say it's on par with the Schwable. ?

[Calnago]

I’d like one more round with it on another set of wheels with a known quantity first... where I prepped them, I glued them, I know what’s what etc. with Wheel #1, I don’t know when it was glued or what glue was used, but I can say it was a poorly done glue job by whoever did it. I think that Conti “Carbon” glue may even have been used, the stuff specifically made for carbon rims, but which no one liked or uses anymore, at least not that I’m aware of. I think that Vittoria Mastik One is really the only way to go these days when it comes to gluing. It’s always worked well for me, and behaves the same way all the time and I’ve never had it kind of go “hard” on me no matter how long the tire has been glued. It works.
But I will say Wheel #2 was the easiest glue removal I’ve ever experienced.

Someone pm’d me wondering if I’d have left the remover on Wheel#1 linger if it might have been easier.
This was my response:
Well, here’s how it went... the guidelines from Effetto say to leave it on between 2-12 hours. I wanted the least amount of time necessary obviously, so I kept checking back on it. At 2 hours it wasn’t ready. So left it maybe 6 hours. Then took a stab at it. Wasn’t fun still. But I figured I’d remove as much as possible then apply a second round. Which I did. The second round was nice and thick and I left it on over night and then some... so like 10-12hours. I got most of it off but not really how I like to see it... which is perfectly clean of all glue traces as if it was new. But I was frustrated with it and I knew it was close enough for government work.

So, later that day, around 3pm I figured since I was all set up anyway I might as well do some Boras that I’ve been meaning to get to. Same process, except the Boras had been previously glued by me, nice and even, two thin layers of Vitoria Mastik One. I coated the rim thickly with the Carogna and let it do its thing. By 5pm (2 hours later) I checked it and could tell it was probably ready to come off then. But I went out for dinner and came back and then around 7pm (4hours after application), went at it and it pretty much took one easy round with my “scooper butter knife”, then some cleanup and voila, it’s perfect. So great. Makes riding tubulars a breeze really if all removals go like this last one did. I have some Vlanderens that I want to remove and replace with a different set of tires on another set of Boras so will see how that goes and then decide.

So, how does it compare with the Schwalbe?... well, this last experience was awesome. I remember with the scwhalbe remover it seemed much more liquidy, which was harder to manage. To be honest I thought sometimes I had tubes that were beyond their shelf life maybe. I don’t know but it was certainly better than using any other method I had done before. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the next set I remove goes as easily as Wheel #2 did. If so, I’m sold. And happy days again.

[KCookie]

Great feed back, many thanks Calnago.
Lucky the product works well as you can't get the Schwable. Couple of thoughts now going through my head, if I stay with glue I could prepare the wheel and drive to my LBS for my mechanic to mount the tyre. I've done a weight comparison between the Vittoria Pro, Vittoria Mastic one and tape, the Pro is well in the lead only weighing 10g per wheel, Mastic one 27g and tape between 30-32g. So I'm really not saving much weight using the Mastic one. I still have a spare tube of Pro enough for the wheel, loads of glue remover and a new tin of Mastic one, seems a shame to use the tape. Decisions.

[welchy]

Can anybody confirm to me if this is correct, I removed these tubulars from some lightly used rims that had been taped on.

When I removed them I also removed a layer of white tape which I believed was part of the original taping process and not part of the tubular.

I have then applied mastic one over the tube and will apply another layer and mount.

The question is did I remove the tubular base tape or is this cotton layer the actual base tape and still intact and therefore I am okay?

[Kjetil]

Looks like Vittoria base tape to me.

[Geoff]

Confirmed. That is the Vittoria basetape that you are showing. If you had pulled-off the basetape, it would have taken a lot of effort to do so. Also, you would see the seam of the casing and the stitching sewing the two sides together around the tube.

It looks like the tire came-off well. The glue looks a little thick, but it looks ok to me.

[welchy]

Looks like Vittoria base tape to me.

Confirmed. That is the Vittoria basetape that you are showing. If you had pulled-off the basetape, it would have taken a lot of effort to do so. Also, you would see the seam of the casing and the stitching sewing the two sides together around the tube.

It looks like the tire came-off well. The glue looks a little thick, but it looks ok to me.

Many thanks guys, well the first wheel I attempted went very badly. Stupidly I had in my mind that I needed a final wet coat of Mastik one on tubular and rim , needless to say a trashed a tyre immediately getting more glue on the sidewalls than imaginable on it - literally rolled half the tubular into wet mastik one and gave up after 5 mins of effort!

Second attempt on the front wheel worked absolute wonders.

I followed this process:

1. Fully cleaned rim (acetone, scraper, elbow grease and washin up liquid)

2. Lightly sanded rim bed

3. Applied thin Layer of Mastik One to rim - cured 24 Hrs

4. Applied Layer of Mastik One to Tubular bed - cured 24 Hrs

5. Applied second thin Layer of Mastik one to rim bed - cured 24 Hrs

6. Applied third Layer of Mastik one to rim bed - let it dry for circa 45 mins

7. Pumped up tubular to get shape, mounted on rim, centred, used bodyweight to seat tubular - inflated to 140PSI and let cure for 24hrs.

I will repeat this process after using sealant remover on the other rim when it arrives on Monday along with my new tubular!

Any thoughts from anybody on my process?

Wandering if I really need three coats of mastik on the rim, or could I be safe with two coats (one 24hrs cure, one 45 mins cure fit tubular and allow further cure for 24hrs)

I will also stretch tubular overnight on the rim before fitment, heard the Vittoria Corsa are quite good compared to contis.

[Jugi]

Any thoughts from anybody on my process?

I find it rather peculiar how simple things like gluing a tubular start to build up into grand endeavours in written discussions like this. Every contributor seemingly wants to bring something more into it.

My process is a bit shorter, but I guess one can't really go wrong when putting so much effort into it.