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.

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