On Thursday, May 30, 2013 2:24:04 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Wed, 29 May 2013 17:36:17 -0700 (PDT)




I am thinking to put a 10 mm basket in an hot oven and bring it close

to melting, hoping it will shrink - what do you think? May be put a

hose clamp around it, and keep tightening it as the thing gets

softer. It's just polypropylene (or ABS) of some sort. Yeah, 10 mm

and 7 mm is a big difference - I don't wanna lose a basket in the

middle of a race.



Yeah, I know - drilling the holes worries me, too - but I do remember

seeing such baskets (with holes) in the 80s.



Baskets crack and get badly misshapen easily, so I'd try with boiling

water first. What comes to mind - you're more the engineer than I -

would be to fit the pole in the basket, reheat it in the H20 very well

and carefully use pliers to see if you can shape it down to the right

size. Not sure that'll work, but I'd be queasy about an oven. If you

can get this to hold on asphalt, then snow won't be a problem.



Gene

Polypropylene melts at around 110C, it gets somwhat soft in boiling water (100C). I could add salt to the water to bring up its boiling point to ~105C. Since baskets are made by injecting molding, I doubt this will damage them.