90s Waterford Gets a Parts-Bin Makeover

by Igor

Parts bin builds are some of my favorite. For very little budget, you can put something together that is unique and fun. This particular Waterford has been through a few iterations with mostly new parts including Campagnolo Athena, then Shimano 11sp bar ends with a new fork and Randonneur Rack, then upright with Curvy Bars, and now in its more roadie edition.

Starting from the hoods, we used some 6600-G 10 speed Shimano integrated shifters. What's the G you ask? Well, Shimano did a Grey addition of the 6600 series because it looks cool. There are matching derailleurs out there, but, you know, parts bin. The shifters had been sitting for a long time, and if you know, that generation of brifters suffered from assembly lube that gummed up over time. I've seen them nearly fossilize on bikes that had been sitting for years. No worries, some WD-40 into the shifter guts got things moving around again and the shifters were right back to clicking and clacking.

Connor wrapped the bars using Tressostar tape in a harlequin-style to match the paint's red-blue fade and it looks super.

The rear dangler is a Dura-Ace unit that has lived on many bikes and shifts up and down the 11-28 cassette perfectly. The front pusher is a non-series 10sp braze-on offering from Shimano. It's fine and shiny.

The wheels have been on there for all of the iterations of this frame. They were expertly laced up by Cutlass Velo in Baltimore a few years back and have stayed perfectly true.

The 1" steel fork is a replacement of the aluminum/carbon fork with unknown history the bike came with. It is raw with a few layers of clearcoat.

This stem and headset combo is something I've wanted to try for a while. Even though the steerer is threaded, we added some spacers on top of the upper locknut and under the adaptor to create the illusion of a threadless system. I think it looks pretty good. 

The perch is a titanium VO saddle we carried a number of years ago and the post is an American Classic in an obscure 27.4 size. There are reports of people trying to put 27.2mm seatposts in the frame and cracking the ears on the seat lug. So if you have a Waterford like this one, use the correct size post.

Aside from the handlebar tape and the cassette, this build was completely assembled from stuff we had lying around. Do you have any parts bin builds in the works?