Home made dropout to the rescue!

This innocent looking little blighter in the picture got me into a bit of a panic last night. It's the rear non drive side drop out on my Trek ex8 and there was a bit of play around it. Thinking it needed a tighten up I delved into my trusty toolbox and with the adjustable spanner gave it a good tweak. Unfortunately I didn't realise it was made of butter and the damned thing broke in half. I half-heartedly tried to super glue it together knowing full well that wouldn't work (but still tried it!) and in the end went to bed to dream most of the night on how I could repair it. A phone call in the morning to the bike shop only confirmed my worst fears, it would take 2 weeks to get a new one. However I have some resourceful friends and armed with the size of threaded bolt to make a new one I called on a customer who builds his own hot-rods and more importantly has a lathe! This challenge was right up his street and in no time he'd produced a steel version of the butter drop out which only required a few minor bits of hacksawing and filing when I got home to get the bike back together again. The test ride seems to confirm everything is tickety-boo, but the real test will be a Pentlands ride tomorrow night........when I think about it the other side dropout is still of the butter variety!