Rack City-jumping on the bandwagon

This project will be rough around the edges no doubt because I've never made a wooden front porteur rack. However I will admit to mistakes that I make so you don't make the same ones if you attempt to recreate my idea. Feel free to constructively critic it but I may not act on it.

The desired result is a sturdy wooden box attached to the fork by some means as my bike lacks eyelets. I thought about P-clips but received a shit ton of stick from the Evans guy so I am going to use copper clips instead (basically p-clips). To stop it slipping forward and give some extra support it will have a headset mounted basket attachment.

Materials at the start (may need more as it progresses)

plywood-building site
box supports (headset+fork mounted)-a friend at Halfords as it was scrap
Copper pipe clips and nuts and bolts-fiver from Robert Dyas

Other than a large investment on a new drill for pilot holes on the wood so far it is pretty cheap, 20x cheaper than a Cetma 5-rail

Enjoy!

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Following

subscribed. so much need for this for my Super Style.

Interested to see how this turns out

Interesting.
Id recommend a waterproof laquer or varnish for the wood. Waterlogged plywood can seperate

^good advice. Looking forward to seeing this come together, nothing better than diy projects

@Dakin I've got a brown varnish that I do all my wood in so I'll just use that

First update-Skeleton completed

I had to buy some metal plates to attach the bolts to and there was space in-between so as always I filled it with old inner tube. Structurally it feels sound bearing in mind that the force will be pushing downwards. It does slide forward but I will put lips on the bottom of the box to stop this happening

This varnish in the corner on my toolbox

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apologies for the pictures I took them with a potato as my blackberry does not have a decent camera.

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Second update

Box assembled ready for drilling, the extended lip on the left hand side of the picture is to stop it front rail slipping out. As drilling into the side of plywood is wrong (Its worked twice for me before for some reason but I will stop now) I added blocks for the screws to go in.

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Subscribed...

(p clips might have been neater!)

Guy in evans said that p clips are for the back, aaannddd told me not to do this project

Yep, I concur.

Always remember that Evans advice should never be taken as gospel. There's no reason that pclips wouldn't work under the same forces on the front and the back.

thats what I thought but he was being tricky and wouldn't let me buy them on the grounds that my safety was at risk

I have the nitto m18 rack which uses p clips on the front and I've never had any problems. They stay that the maximum weight it can take is around 8kg so you may start to get some issues if you were to surpass that

I was agreeing that Evans were full of shit.

Final major update

All technical work is finished, thanks to my mate Ed who helped with the measurements for drilling. due to the drilling is far more secure than anything I've ever made before. It sits just how I wanted which surprised me but I'm glad it did, we rode for about an hour today for a test run along roads, cobbles, towpath, asphalt, grass, inclines and declines with a couple of beers and no problems (I may add a cup holder later on). There is a little bit of flex but that is the jubilee clip. I will varnish it soon too.

To the five people that said it was a bad idea fuck you.

thanks!

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Gréât!

Looks good, I'd still tidy it up with P-clips, fuck Evans advice.

You drill drain holes yet?

Yes man! I like it

could do drain holes, unsure for now, may also do holes for bungee/bunjie/bungi to go in

Looks good! Give it a good power-sanding to get it looking really slick

Cup holder is a great idea!

Sand it, varnish, P clips, drain holes and cup holder would make it amazing.
Somewhere to hook bungees would be sick too.