Timber Leaning Trike Part 3

Lining up the pieces for the back of the bike frame with a bottom bracket shell and a piece of 20 x 12 dressed all round timber.  This is the same section used in the steerer.

Putting glue on those pieces.  It's a 2 part glue, not mixed yet in this photo

The same process for the front of the bike

Back part of the frame.  There's a bit of extra glue there that needs cleaning up.

Front part of the frame with the front fork in place.

Hi, today I've been gluing bits of bike together, its been going quite well.  Soon I'll be able to put the whole frame together.  I made a few mistakes in the drawing, and am writing down a list of these as I go, they will be fixed up in the next version.

Timber Leaning Trike Part 2

Some sawn-off parts, those on the left are unsanded, on the right, sanded

Small Sawn-off parts, and the piece they come from. They are used to clip the tailbox panels on to the tailbox.

Internal brace before sawing.

These parts will be glued together to make solid timber for the rear axle.  This shows parts cut out of pieces.  The rectangular holes are where rectangular DAR timber will slot in to keep all the parts in line while glueing.

Front section that will become solid timber.  The gap between the 2 stacks of timber (right) is for the head tube and the large round tube is for the bottom bracket.

Hi,

Last Thursday, all the routed timber that will make up the trike arrived.  This is NC routed by TGC Building , and I have begun removing parts that will be glued together to make the trike from the pieces which have been cut from 4mm hoop pine marine ply. The parts of the frame that need to be strong are the 2 ends, as they need to absorb forces from the wheels, chain and bottom bracket.  So the back and front will be solid plywood, made from laminating sheets together.  The front and back form small modules, I will glue these together next, and that can be done independant of the complete frame gluing.  Till next time!

Steve Nurse

Next Post

Timber Leaning Trike Part 1

A mockup of what it will look like.  I took the seat / tailbox from one trike, the steerer from another, and plonked it on my timber frame trike.

A few parts which have been gathered together to build the trike.  7 speed, 26" front wheel, 11 - 40 sunrace rear cog set, 26" unsuspended MTB forks, custom laser-cut dropouts. 

Bending the forks to suit the front wheel.  This process is repeated a few times until the gap between the dropouts is wide enough.

Jig for keeping back brake bosses in place while brazing.

Standard fork dropouts removed, new one in place 

Timber steerer side-plates which were made from 1 large piece and need to be sawn apart.

Reaming headstem parts so they fit snug around the handlebars.

At this stage the timber for the steerer is all predrilled but needs to be glued together.  Handlebars were acquired at the Abbotsford Cycle market as per my last post.

Hi

(June 25, 2017 You can skip ahead to a video of the completed trike.  Here is the link )

Over the past 2 years I have made 6 versions of leaning trikes which includes Vi Voung's "ilean" wheelset design at the back.  This has all been part of an industrial design master's degree, and I've been on a scholarship which has been my wages (woohoo!).  A few months ago the scholarship ended, I'm pootling around now looking for my next gig.

One opportunity that came up is the Dangerous Designs timber design competition, and a few months ago I decided to enter it.  I have built a few wooden HPVS before and even plywood leaning trikes, but the plywood leaning trike (like the ones shown 8 photos down here  or in this video) wasn't made to the you beaut, latest spec and I didn't feel like entering it in the competition.  I mocked up what my best leaning trike could look like, and this is shown in the top photo.

But still not good enough!  To enter the competition properly, I really wanted to build a trike to my latest and best design, so I set about working on the design.  Because previous designs were part of my work and masters degree, I didn't document building them very much in the blog.  But I will try to document this one a bit better, here we go with part 1.

Next Post.

Abbotsford Cycles Market

Bike Market At Abbotsford Cycles today

Free Stuff!

The market.  I didn't wait for the train to go past.  It was just there.

Ross Harrup Checks my bike

Book 1 from free stuff, formicone manual

Book 2 from free stuff, Raleigh "A Shortened Illustrated History of the Bicycle"

Book 3 from free stuff, "How to be a good bike rider and a safe one!"

Formicone Detail 1

Formicone 2

Formicone 3

Images 1 from "How to....."

Images 2

Images 3

Images 4

Images 5

Hi

I spent some of today reassembling and storing trikes, but managed to find an hour or so late in the morning to slip down to Abbotsford Cycles where a bike market was taking place.  And it was a good move.  I bought a t-shirt and  spoke to a few people I knew.  The market was ending and a few stallholders were giving away stuff they didn't want to take home with them, and I grabbed a few books and pamphlets.  A pair of wide handlebars I had wanted had gone from the stall they were on and I panicked a bit but they had wound up on the free stuff pile.    Over the next few weeks I hope to be building a new trike, and I plan to blog about all of it. The handlebars should work well on the trike. Woohoo!

One of the pamphlets is a 70 page Formicone bike manual.  The formicone is an Italian modular bike and has various strange tech like extendable forks built into it. At one stage I owned a Formicone Tandem and wrote a web page about it, so was quite pleased to get this.


Another item is a bike safety pamphlet, printed entirely in red and yellow ink.  I am sure Scott Adams who writes the Dilbert comics got a good long look at these characters before he started his career.  The last pamphlet is a Raleigh short History of the bicycle.

Anyway, it was a nice outing and I was glad to catch up with Ross, Adrian and John Harland.

Till next time

Steve Nurse

Flower of the Month, February

Crepe Myrtle, Next door, photo taken Feb 19

3 Doors down

3 Doors down

Hi.

Yes, you may be slightly confused by the title of this post.  It's March, in fact almost all of the way through March, and here I am posting stuff from February.  But just think, what if I had posted it in April.  Even worser, and even more of my credibility would have been thrown out the window.

But enough of crapping on.  The crepe myrtle flowers in summer, and there are quite a few of them in our street, so getting a few photos was very easy.  Before photographing it, I didn't know its name, but now I do thanks to my wife Christine who identified it for me.

Regards

Steve Nurse

A trip to Aki's place

Aki's Flevobike remained unconquered

The smaller of the 2 penny farthings Aki brought out was a "Roy Cooper" from England

Small Unicycle and stilts

Very small bicycle.  Sitting on the seat caused an immediate wheelie.

On the "Roy Cooper" Penny

Heading off from the barbecue to Aki's place to get more bikes

Buddy Tandem

Aki on his big Penny

Aki And George

Fraser Rowbike, I got to try one for the first time.  It was lots of fun and not too hard to ride.

Workcycles Tandem, the front bit folds backwards

Aki's Recumbent trike

Hi

A few years ago, I sold a recumbent bike to Aki Kubota and I kept in touch with him and he visited the OzHpv challenge in 2014.  Hadn't heard from him in a while, but a few days ago, I received an SMS from him asking me and other cycle enthusiasts over to a barbecue at his place.  Today was the day, and I headed over to Camberwell via my Mum and Dad's place in Kew.

Aki lives in a unit just near a park, and when I arrived he was bringing bikes from his place to the barbecue area in the park.  And what a lot of bikes and variety of bikes!  He had bought most of them cheaply second hand (for example the trike was $100).  Aki works at a hostel for international students and he has held this barbecue for three years, bringing students and coworkers from his work together in a park to ride his bikes.  For all of them, these sorts of bikes were completely new to them, but they had a great time trying them out.

The Fraser rowbike was fun to ride.  Its quirky but once you get moving, not too hard.  I don't know about setting off round the world on one but its good for a pootle in the park and has a nice luggage rack.  This post links to a video I made of one several years ago.

One of Aki's bikes is a classic Flevobike.  I couldn't ride it, and Aki has never mastered it himself, although he is a past master at the Penny Farthing.  Maybe I will have another crack at the Flevo next year.

Regards

Steve Nurse

A Visit to the Monash HPV Team

Trying the bike for size

Piyath and the Monash HPV

Outside, checking out my trike and discussing HPVs in general, me in white shirt.

Monash HPV Team

Hi

For about 2 years now, I have been researching Human Powered Vehicles at Monash University, and, more or less in a parallel universe, the Monash HPV team (their Facebook page is here) have been patiently working away, trying to build and ride the fastest Human Powered Vehicle in the world.

Finally, last Tuesday I caught up with the team, and in typical fashion, I rode my trike there and arrived in good time to speak to Piyath and his team.

Streamliners are quite hard taskmasters.  There only purpose is to go fast and to do this, the rider is cocooned in an aerodynamic, possibly claustrophobic shell, and then the rider is meant to pedal their guts out.  Breaking records is one of the main goals of the streamliner team and its quite hard!  Team Monash is really just starting out and their next outing is at Easter under the auspices of OzHpv.  Good luck guys!

PS Team Aerovelo are the current HPV 200m record holders with a speed of 144kph, and amongst student teams, Team Delft are very highly considered.  Locally, Trisled do well, breaking some records and using their experience to help build roadgoing human powered vehicles and velomobiles.

Regards

Steve Nurse