Lil' Chap (Mini Penny Farthing/High wheel)

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Motopecane

Motopecane

Joined
Sep 10, 2010
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So,
This is a build I have been wanting to do for a long time and am just now getting the parts together to do it. I'm going to let you guess what it is until I make some progress.

Picked up these items today...

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-Moto
 
Re: Lil' Chap

Made some progress today! Well pretty much finished it aside from grinding my ugly welds and painting it.
De-laced a 27" wheel I had laying around. Then laced up the unicycle hub 4x into it.
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This bike had the fork that I needed.
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Cut the legs off the unicycle fork and started to plan.
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BRAVO they slip right on!
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The Schwinn exerciser got butchered for a good cause.
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It's starting to take shape...
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Figured out a cool way to do a gusset sort of thing.
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Got to looking at the floating seat tube on this bike.
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Cut it off!
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Welded it on!
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Added a Schwinn spring seat, headlight, and some flipped risers with moped grips to finish it off.
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I took the 12 1/2inch wheel apart to paint it black since it was pink and man that is the tinniest and easiest wheel I have ever laced.

Hope you like it! :D It's fun to ride but I think I am going to try and make a rod pull brake that presses on the front tire to be period correct, backpedaling just makes you do a stoppy. :oops:

-Moto
 
Re: Lil' Chap NEW PHOTOS!

Looking good !I like how this is coming together.I built one a few weeks ago,these are fun to build and challenging to ride!
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Re: Lil' Chap NEW PHOTOS!

Yes they are hard to ride but once you get the hang of it extremely fun! I wish I could have made my main tube as gradual of a curve as yours..

I did want the wheel base tighter though as I wanted it to look traditional.


I decided to use the rear coaster brake 12.5 inch wheel from the Dora bike and I rigged it up as a suicide brake that slows you down just fast enough. I realized it needed a brake when I tried to backpedal and it almost threw me over. So I figured the braking should come from the back wheel.
 
Re: Lil' Chap NEW PHOTOS!

So as promised some photos of the suicide brake.

The reason I went with this type of brake is that I didn't want to rub the paint off the small rim with a caliper and I couldn't use a front brake because it would throw me over.

I had a few things to work around like the fact that the brake handle had to be on the handle bars. (it is impossible, or really really hard to ride one handed)

Anyway I'll shut up here's the photos, I haven't swapped out the pink hoop for the black one yet but will.

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-Moto
 
Re: Lil' Chap (Suicide brake done!)

Despite the fact that I just wanted to ride this thing more I decided to make progress. I stripped it off all the parts down to just the frame. Then I proceeded to try and clean up my ugly welds. I couldn't make them perfect so I found some finishing bondo that we have and used every last bit. Now I am just waiting for it to set up so I can sand it.

I need opinions on paint color, I already have 2 cans of flat black so I was thinking that. I just feel like these things are always black.

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-Moto
 
So I ended up just going with the flat black that I have because I am impatient. I ran out of Bondo and some parts are still not smooth but I figured I can always go back later.

Anyway here is the finished product for now. She is getting a new seat tomorrow and a different rear tire is in the mail.

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So I decided to ride this lil guy to work on Friday. Everything was going great and I was getting all kinds of looks. About 30 feet from work I had to diverge off the sidewalk onto some grass and hit a small bump. At that moment I felt my feet hit the ground.

Long story short my center weld broke. I had sleeved the tubes but come to find out that I didn't leave a large enough gap so the sleeve never got welded with it :oops: . It actually came all the way out.

So I re-cut the tubes nice and flush, sanded off the paint and bondo, and then found a seat post that just happened to be the right size.

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I think I need to do better preparation for my welds and remember to leave a gap. Oh well I am learning, and my welder could be better.

-Moto
 

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