The nut end of a QR skewer - what is it made of?

[KneesUp]

I'm thinking of getting a couple of these to low mount my eBay retina burner light so I can see potholes before they take my filling out when winter comes.

ebay link

My only concern is that they are made of aluminium, and I wasn't sure if that was strong enough for the other end of a skewer - I thought they were steel generally, or at least the threaded part is?

Any advice welcome. Don't want to go wasting £1.34 after all (but more importantly I like my wheels to stay attached)

 

[Globalti]

Won't the light get damaged easily? Surely it's better on the bars where it will still cast a good shadow over irregularities?

 

[Yellow Saddle]

It all depends on who makes them.
Firstly, that nut's serrations has to be made from hardened steel if it is to be used for a QR rear wheel. Aluminium is just not good enough to bite into the frame and create a fret-free grip.
Steel is of course a curse word in the bicycle world dominated by weight weenies and many manufacturers respond by producing skewers made from all sorts of lightweight rubbish. Which means you can have your nuts in steel or aluminium and the skewer rod in steel or titanium. These skewers generally creak like a honeymoon bed.
Shimano's lightweight high-end skewer nuts (on the high end wheels such as Ultegra and DA and XT and XTR) have steel teeth inserted into a plastic or aluminium nut. Ditto for Campag. Companies like Zipp reckon that deep-section carbon wheels are so noisy as it is, no-one will care about the groans from the rear wheel and therefore make a lightweight all-alu QR (with steel rod, which you cannot get away from).

For front wheel use, if there is a lawyer's lip on the fork, an aluminium nut will work if your skewer has enough thread available for the nut.

Therefore, go ahead and be a dork. Get one of those nuts.

 

[KneesUp]

For front wheel use, if there is a lawyer's lip on the fork, an aluminium nut will work if your skewer has enough thread available for the nut.

Therefore, go ahead and be a dork. Get one of those nuts.

Made me laugh

No lawyers lips on the steel fork I was going to use it on, so I'll keep my £1.34 for another day

 

[si_c]

Made me laugh

No lawyers lips on the steel fork I was going to use it on, so I'll keep my £1.34 for another day

Why not mount the light sideways to the fork leg?

 

[JasD]

I have a cateye light with the wrap around bracket fitted to the front fork. Works perfectly at illuminating the road directly ahead.

 

[KneesUp]

Why not mount the light sideways to the fork leg?

It's one of these style of lights so that wouldn't really work as I'd need to rotate it so it wasn't pointing upwards from the curve of the fork. Although perhaps the mounting bracket unsrews? I'll investigate ...