Just wanted to share how I modified one of those fake Neosteel Arch style tubes from a Chinese belt to my real Neosteel waistband. The holes line up perfectly with the pins on NS waistband except the center hole on the tube is much larger, it still has a good fit on the two side pins so I am not concerned.
I am testing out an Epoxy coating using a food-grade epoxy mixed with pigment. I need to rig up some kind of tumbler so the epoxy does not run too much if I do this again, you can see it in the finish but mostly just affects the appearance. The appearance of the tube ends up looking similar to the Neosteel AB coating except that it is shinier. In addition, I decided to fill in the breathing holes and drilled one large hole in the end of the tube similar to how a Fun tube is made.
I was able to get a near perfect fit making my own rear cable from 6mm stainless with 2 layers of marine heatshrink applied. Overall I think it fits nearly as well as my original Arch tube and as expected, it is slightly less comfortable when sitting due to the length and shape of the tube where the shape of the Fun tube improves this significantly. So far I am happy with how this turned out, but I still hope to find a real Arch/Fun tube one day - shameless plug but if you have one to sell please PM me!
I should have taken more pictures, but I just have these for now:
I am testing out an Epoxy coating using a food-grade epoxy mixed with pigment. I need to rig up some kind of tumbler so the epoxy does not run too much if I do this again, you can see it in the finish but mostly just affects the appearance. The appearance of the tube ends up looking similar to the Neosteel AB coating except that it is shinier. In addition, I decided to fill in the breathing holes and drilled one large hole in the end of the tube similar to how a Fun tube is made.
I was able to get a near perfect fit making my own rear cable from 6mm stainless with 2 layers of marine heatshrink applied. Overall I think it fits nearly as well as my original Arch tube and as expected, it is slightly less comfortable when sitting due to the length and shape of the tube where the shape of the Fun tube improves this significantly. So far I am happy with how this turned out, but I still hope to find a real Arch/Fun tube one day - shameless plug but if you have one to sell please PM me!
I should have taken more pictures, but I just have these for now: