Search results for:

An engraved aluminium plate, then routered in might be cool. epoxy under and over ?

I've been playing with some of the wood offcuts that I've got left over. I'm going to stick it on after I've finished the frame. Think it should come out quite interesting.

I was just pondering, how on earth would you lock it up ? (scratches etc.)

I've thought that too. I hate to admit it but it may be a call for a more matte finish (ArtherFrayn looks smug) as small scratches wouldnt show quite as much. The varnish is a tough polyurethane varnish but nothing like as tough as powdercoating. The beauty is that because I've made it myself any scratches will just need a wipe of varnish and a quick rub down to be back to new again.

You could engrave the head tube badge with a bit if care?

Watch this space

Here's a couple of photos to stoke the gloss vs matte debate. Just applied the first coat of epoxy finish. It needs to be fully rubbed down before a second coat of epoxy and 3 coats of varnish. By the end it will have a flawless finish, not the slightly uneven finish in the photos. The Wenge has gone black and has almost lost the colour of the grain, which is a shame, but was expected. The Bubinga outer layer looks fantastic though.

Need to get on with it as i've got some more busy weekends coming up and don't want this to take for ever (read - my parents are getting tired of me turning up every couple of weeks to use their tools and turn their house into a workshop)

From the Telegraph picture of the day http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoftheday/9199738/Pictures-of-the-day-12-April-2012.html

Following on from Ed's comment a while ago. What advice does anyone have for affordable ways of reducing weight by chosing the right components?... and, no, I'm not just going to keep sanding to cut down on weight!

I've currently got Sugino 75 cranks, stronglight chainring, v heavy wheels with DP18 rims on Quando hubs, full carbon chinese noname forks, planet X alu drops (don't know the model) and I don't have a seat or seatpost yet.

The first choice has to be wheels, right? I've been on the lookout for a decent lighter replacement in the classifieds but haven't seen anything that tickles my fancy. Any recommendations?

That's looking very cool! Is the varnish gonna be really glossy or matte?

It's a new bike so it HAS to be very shiny and glossy.

How about branding it?

Genius! Not sure how comfortable I feel about potentially setting it on fire though.

There were a couple of wooden bikes on EHBE last week, always interesting.

I went to Bespoked Bristol a couple of weeks ago and there was a stand for Flat Pack Frames and also Boocycles (not THE Boo Bicycles from the US). I thought they were both dissappointing and would expect more from a commercial operation. There was also an Axalko frame outside which looked fantastic but i didn't really get a chance to look at it properly.

What glue is it that you use anyway?

West System Epoxy. It's the strongest, most reliable stuff you can buy. Quite expensive though.

I've stalled recently. It's all glued up, sanded and sanded again. Looks bloody great so I'm really happy. All it needs is varnishing. I want to put a logo on the down tube and have spent ages trying different techniques which have all failed. So far I've tried printing onto spring roll rice paper and laying onto epoxy. That went completely clear with the black texy showing through nicely but was too thick and didn't wrap around a curve very easily. I tried thinner rice paper which didn't go clear and i tried thin white tissue paper which nearly went clear but not quite. I also tried iron on transfer paper which went on to the wood nicely but then the epoxy sealing layer didn't go through the clear bits of the iron on patch so the wood came out lighter under the logo and looked shit. It was also really hard to iron on a curved surface without ruining the logo.

My next test is going to be: Seal the wood with epoxy, apply the printed logo on waterslide decal paper and seal over the top. I'm hoping this will work as i spent a week trying to get hold of the bloody rice paper.... and that was the worst of the lot!

Any more suggestions for getting a text logo onto a curved wooden surface that will then be sealed with epoxy and varnish? I could stencil and paint it but I thought printing would give me a crisper outline.

I started over Christmas and have spent at least a day per weekend since then so probably somewhere around 100 hours so far but hopefully not too much more to go.

You're right, getting the rear triangle straight is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I spent a whole evening the other day sanding the ends of the stays to get them to align properly. Still haven't glued it all up but I think it's nearly all in the right place. All done by putting the frame on it's side on a flat foor and measuring everything relative to the floor. Very fiddly though and would obviously be easier with a proper frame building stand. I'm going to clamp it all together and stick the rear wheel in before I do the final glue up, just to make sure.

I just got an email from a guy in Spain who's getting a CNC router to build his first wooden bike! That would be sooooo much easier.

[QUOTE=Dramatic Hammer;2771517]Riding like that ^^ does make you look like a total dick though.QUOTE]

Thats true. Don't come to me for style advice!

The short answer is yes, a bit, and that is built into my 'pulling up force', but it doesn't have as much effect as it feels like it should.

When you stand up out of the saddle all your weight goes on one foot on one side of the bike and unbalances the bike. If you didn't have your hands on the handle bars this would cause the bike to fall over to the side that you're pushing on. You then need to put an opposing push/pull on the handle bars to stop it falling over. Thats why getting out of the saddle on a fixie skidder with cut down handle bars is much harder because you don't have much lever arm on the handle bars. This doesn't happen when you're sat in the saddle because the out of balance force goes up the seat tube and the seat pushes against your arse cheek/ inner thigh and balances. So a lot of the yanking that we tend to do when we're out of the saddle grinding up a hill is purely to keep the bike upright but a bit of this does go into helping you push harder.

Rather than extreme yanking on the handle bars you can reduce the ammount you need to pull by leaning the bike away from the foot you're pushing with to try and keep your weight over the wheels as you transition from foot to foot. Although you still need to work fairly hard with your upper body to shift the bike from one side to the other as you're leaning it in the opposite direction to the way it wants to go.

Fixed and reposted with the right numbers. Fortunately/ unfortunately I'd also assumed that you got full lever arm on the cranks on the full revolution. When I took this into account it pretty much cancelled out the other mistake I'd made on the length of the cranks. Phew! I'm sure you guys had noticed the mistake and were just being polite.

Spot any more errors?

I haven't made a lot of progress recently but here are some shots from this weekend. I've been working on the drop outs and brake bridge. The bridge is going to get a Bubinga facia to make it thick enough for the brake bolt but you'll still see the aluminium behind.

You can also see my attempt at inlay. It was meant to look like the BMW logo (Bubinga, Maple & Wenge!) but it looks more crash test dummy like. Which might be more appropriate!

Still to do: Glue up the stays, final sanding, seal and varnish. I've made up a logo to put under the varnish and the thread about head badges in the General forum has got me thinking.......

Some of you might have seen my madcap wooden bike that's under construction in the Current Projects forum. I set up a website to document it but have also started a blog to post about random bike related things.

First post is about the physics of getting up hills on a singlespeed and why it's really not as bad as our geared comrades would like to believe.

WARNING it gets quite geeky (read: I get quite geeky). You've been warned, so no apologies from this point on!
http://ligneusbikes.wordpress.com/blog/

EDIT: I've just realised that I did the whole article based on a crank length of 120mm! Not sure where that came from. Using 170mm completely changes the final answer..... and conclusion. Doh! I'll have a think about it today and update the post with the right numbers.

EDIT 2: Updated and reposted with the right numbers. Sorry!

Do they have machined braking surfaces so they can be used with a freewheel?

Thanks for the encouragement and enthusiasm! The one thing that keeps me awake at night is.... is it actually going to work?! I'm still worried that the head tube might disintegrate at 40mph down a hill. I saw this video and thought I should probably do something similar before I do anything serious on it when it is finished. Anyone else got any good ideas for simple frame tests?
Bamboo Bike Frame Deflection Strength Test #2 - Daisy - YouTube

Contemplates a concrete bicycle... Ed's interest in the thread becomes clear.

You're going to think i'm fully mad now. But, in the not too distant future, it's a distinct possibility that you could produce a mould and run off concrete bike frames at a rate of knots using UHPFRC (ultra high performance fibre reinforced concrete). It certainly looks like it has the possibility of outperforming a wood frame if you could cast it thin enuough, although i've only ever seen it used for bridges and roofs and it's still very specialist stuff.

Really amazing work. Do you mind if I ask what you do for a living?

I'm a structural engineer. Primarily steel and concrete buildings, so not much to do with bikes or wood! I just like tinkering. In fact, I hadn't used a router before when I started this project over Christmas.

Building as a singlespeed or geared?

If the former, it's possible to get to a sub-8kg overall weight with decent component choice.

I've got some really light unbranded carbon forks, sugino cranks, stronglight chain ring.... so not looking bad.... untill the DP18's on Quando hubs wheelset which I got dirt cheap off Ebay. They weigh a ton so I really need to find something better considering the effort i've put into the frame.

Another day's work over the weekend so I thought I'd post an update.
/attachments/50310 /attachments/50311
Here are a couple of shots just before I stuck the 2 halves of the frame together. No going back now! It's a lot heavier than I was expecting as I got chicken and I've done a lot less lightening around the corners than I was planning. I think i've also generally been cautious when cutting and shaping and at 5mm thick an extra 1mm thickness is 20% extra weight. All up I think we're looking at about 2.8kg for the frame. It looks and feels better than I was expecting so I'm not losing any sleep over it.
There are a few more photos and description on the blog
http://ligneusbikes.wordpress.com/hardwood-single-speed/construction/page-2/

The woods were essentially a copy of the woods that Renovo use but i did do plenty of homework first to make sure i was making the right choice. They are essentially the hardest/ stiffest/ densest woods I could easily lay my hands on. Its all hollow on the inside and i'm using a decent Trend router to do all of the shaping work (with plenty of elbow grease thrown in for sanding!)

It's certainly not a cheap way to build a frame. I spent over £200 on the wood alone and planned the order so finely that I have less than a foot of each wood left over at the end!

I've written some of what I've learnt about using wood on this page http://ligneusbikes.wordpress.com/why-wood/ with the geeky bits in here http://ligneusbikes.wordpress.com/why-wood/lets-talk-numbers/

All the construction pics up to now are on my blog and i'll keep adding them as i go. If anyone knows how to make the pics appear smaller when i try to add them to these posts then I can link some here.

I've lusted after some of the amazing frames that Renovo Bikes produce for some time now. Particularly this one

I don't have the wonga to shell out for one of these bad boys so i thought i'd give it a bash myself. I'm keeping a record of the build on my blog http://ligneusbikes.wordpress.com/hardwood-single-speed/ and here are some pics of how it looks at the moment.
/attachments/50307 /attachments/50308 /attachments/50309 /attachments/50306
The wood is maple centre, wenge middle and bubinga outer layer. I'll post updates as it progresses.

Queue wood jokes..........

Is it just the photo, or is the square taper on the non drive side crank not very square any more?