Campagnolo Record Ergopower levers tuning (part 1)

This actually made me lose my appetite upon closer observation of the photo.

Before: those logos look pretty ugly.

After: It looks plain and nice now, too, with a touch of beautiful handmade imperfection on close-up.

Before: 348.8g.

After: Sanding and stripping of the hoods brings down the weight to 307.7g.

The process was straightforward. I've de-sensitized myself to the risks of destroying costly components, so I carried a stool into the toilet, and started filing these with a half-round file at the sink, until the logos disappeared. I spent a long time sanding them down to a normal looking, matte-ish appearance after that, since the half-round file eats into the clear coat much deeper than sandpaper. Moreover, I only had 600 grit sandpaper left, so it was a slow process.

After which, I decided to remove the hoods entirely. I don't see what's the use of the hoods, it feels perfectly comfortable in my hands without the hoods. The hoods don't really waterproof the mechanism underneath either - I realized that the hood was all wet and had grime underneath from the rinse I gave it after the sanding. There are recesses for the holes in which the hoods' stopper plugs enter, holding the hoods in place. Removing the hoods gives me plenty of room for dremelling to a nicer, lighter shape, too.

The hoods were a pain in the... hand to remove. It was all brute muscle and very inelegant, I thought I was gonna rip the thing apart. It's quite unintuitive too, to fold it inside out and push it out from the front of the lever.

I'll get more sandpaper and dremelling action into this when I have time. I realized that I had been working on two projects at the same time today, with this.