Jukadi

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Head badge for jukadi. The widow maker was the one man mine drill. When it was introduced there was a strike in 1913 as miners traditionally worked in teams for safety. Mine safety was bad. No respirator, safety glasses or ear protection. The scaffold was not OSHA approved either.

 
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LukeTheJoker said:
That is a tiny chainwheel!

Luke.
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24 teeth. I want to use this beast for single track with a Bendix 2 speed. It might be too low for a good compromise. I have a 30 tooth for sure and maybe a 28 some where in my junk. My 28 tooth works real good on my klunker with a Nexus 3 speed. I can ride most trails here with it but it is a different story up the road where they are all hand cut and the guys like to climb. It's what they call grinders. My 3 speed doesn't work for some of this. A few of the old guys have put 20 tooth small sprockets on for this but I can't balance on that slow a climb.
 
Jukadi and his wheels are hanging on the garage wall. I got to get packed for vacation. Last min prep, like getting rid of the dogs and packing etc. I made better gussets to hold the frame together today and bent tubing with my torch, which I may or may not be able to use. No work on this until I get back
 
By da way, the 1913 strike was over a bunch of grievances including the use of the widow maker one man drill. This mine strike was immortalized by the 1940 Woody Guthrie song "1913 Massacre" later covered by the likes of Boy Dylan and Arlo Guthrie. I can't imagine working like that, but the previous generation of miners worked with a candle, sledge hammer and hand held star drill. It gives me the creeps just walking around on the surface of the 1850s caving ground, let alone under it. Last week I found a star drills stuck in the rock that the 1840s - 50s miners couldn't get out. I marvel at the pits that were dug using the star drill, two sledge hammer operators, black powder and mules. I thought the Widow Maker Black Ale beer can logo would make a good tribute head badge for jukadi. I have to work in a theme for the Edmund Fitzgerald but haven't figured out how to do that yet. The Fitzgerald's ship bell had been recovered and is in the Whitefish Point Maritime Museum. Perhaps I can hang a bell from the handlebars?
 
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Maybe you could put a bell mounted under the frame like gremlin bells for motorcycles. I would never have the fortitude to prospect in an old mine,the river near my house is good enough. Mines were dangerous then and even more so now.
Stay Out, Stay Alive.
 
We did a road trip a few years back through Michigan, the upper peninsula was an interesting place. Lots of neat history and shoreline along Lake Superior. Good luck with your build.


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Jukadi ethic calls for make do and self reliance. With this in mind I started battery welding the frame. The first project, to test the idea, was to make a set of truss rods for another bike someone gave me that only had the truss rod bracket. I used fork centering washers and cut a slot in the rod for the washer and welded it using my truck and marine batteries.
Jukadi welding rig

Truss rod using Jukadi battery welding

Bike frame weld using batteries. I hope to get better at this. Stick welding seems much harder than MIG with gas.
 
Stick welding with a battery is fun but my skills with it are not up to the task. One problem is that I am pushing 70 and have a central tremor so I can't hold the stick steady enough to get a good constant arc. I cut off the electrode and make it short, which helps. The more I do this the better the welds have become but I don't think I can master this well enough to make safe welds. The welds are very porous and I have burned through in one place and had to fill it in. I could fill in the open places but porosity means poor penetration. I am in the process of trying to save $800 for a MIG. I have sold one bike but have only about one third saved. So, the new plan is to tack it together using batteries and a jig and take it to one of two buddies who will let me use their welders. I have tried the Miller and the other one is a Lincoln. This will help me decide which welder to buy. Below is the result of my welding with batteries.
 
Rig-A-Ma-Jig. My battery tack welds are better than the long welds, getting a little better at this. I still wouldn't trust the welds for single track abuse. Channel iron was cut out from a Model T frame. All thread, washers, nuts, bolts, squares, micrometer and clamps. It still will probably be crooked?

 
Welding in true rat fashion!!
 
kingfish254 said:
Welding in true rat fashion!!
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I'm trying to do it like the old Finns up here. Use crude methods to make something useful but not pretty. I wanted to try coat hangers for electrodes but real electrodes are too challenging so I ditched that idea. The frame is all tacked together. I want to tack up a seatpost next.
 
If you can't borrow a decent welder, have you considered brazing now that you've got it tacked? A $30 MAAP torch a spare $10 bottle and $15 or so in bronze rod might be enough to finish the job you started...

BTW, considering that you're stick welding thin tube, I don't think those welds are too awful-better than I could get with that rig!
 
order99 said:
If you can't borrow a decent welder, have you considered brazing now that you've got it tacked? A $30 MAAP torch a spare $10 bottle and $15 or so in bronze rod might be enough to finish the job you started...

BTW, considering that you're stick welding thin tube, I don't think those welds are too awful-better than I could get with that rig!
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Hey, I like that brazing idea but using MAPP might be against the Jakudi ethic. I don't know anything about brazing. I have a 1957 Triumph motorcycle and there is a video on Youtube of the The Triumph factory made in 1957. I found the video looking up 1957 Triumph on the net. It shows them furnace brazing the frames in what looks like a bed of coke. I wonder if I could do this at my cabin in my fire pit with hard maple after it has turned to coals? I don't know what kind of flux to use? You could wrap the joints with brass rods and place it on the coals and let gravity do its thing. I don't know if I have the sisu to try this as it might ruin the frame. The patina would be cool. I have a MAPP rig. I wonder if the local welding supply shop would know what kind of flux to use for furnace brazing?
 
The seat tube on the original bike was necked down to accommodate the seat post. I cut of the tapered top of the seat tube as it was too long for the reconfigured gender bender. I found a pipe to fit and tacked on a cut off section of a seat post from a 16 inch bike so a seat clamp would fit.

 
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What am I thinking? A real piece of poo. This bike seems silly when I look at it. I wonder if I even should finish it? My real Klunker made from a CWC frame gets comments on the trail like "your nuts" and weird stares. I take those comments and stares in a good way but sometimes I feel like a cross country skier on a downhill race course. The ultimate would be to finish the Jukadi and run it in a single track race, with the goal of finishing before the bike disintegrates and beating someone. I probably won't finish it in time for the big local race, the "Ore to Shore".

 
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