SWB0 The Flying Dutchman

[ChaOs]

Can you please give me a little bit of your talent and skills? Just a tiny bit. I could really use it.

 

[bikewhorder]

I got the second half of the down tube glued up tonight. I had to adjust my spacer block because it couldn't physically clamp to the first shape that I made and i'm glad it didn't because I like the second Iteration much better. If you look closely you can see the seam where I had to add a piece to the spacer.

 

[Jude Ephesus]

-this thing is unbelievable!

 

[bikewhorder]

Every weekend I think I'm going to get so much done, And then the weekend flies by and there's almost no progress. I was hoping to have all the frame and fork parts laminated by the end of january. We're getting into the end of february and i'm not even done with what actually is the easy part of this build. Putting all these parts together is going to be quite a challenge. Definitely starting to panic a little. I'd say I'm about twenty five percent done and I actually had a minor set back this weekend. I overclamped part of the top tube and had to redo it on both sides. It still won't be perfect but it should be a lot better.

 

[bikewhorder]

I did a little time lapse photo shoot of the glue up for the down tube. Also here's a picture of my top tube redo side by side. I'm glad I fixed it.I couldn't live with it like that.

 

[bikewhorder]

My "headset" parts arrived today from mcmaster. Like everything about this bike it's a little unconventional. It's basically going to operate like a hinge instead of a traditional headset. It's going to consist of two sets of five 1/2 inch thick aluminum plates about seven inches long and two inches wide. Two will be attached to the frame and three attached to the fork. I came up with this because it occurred to me that it was difficult to attach a head tube to the wood but it was easy to bolt on flat plates with a hole drilled in one end. I think it should work.

 

[ChaOs]

Unconventional yet awesome!

 

[bikewhorder]

Ill admit I wasn't too sure about this idea but it's exciting to see it coming together. I was really nervous that I was going to invest all this time and energy (and money!) only for some unforeseen miscalculation to make it totally not work. Having access to some serious tools makes it relatively easy and I think it's going to work fine. It might be the worlds heaviest headset though, lol.

 

[BartRidesEternal]

It might be the worlds heaviest headset though, lol.

Curves are looking good!

 

[bikewhorder]

More glue ups tonight. This will be in between pieces for the fork "tusks" that the headset will attach to. I also decided this weekend that I need to remake my seat post Parts that I had already invested a good bit of time into. Due to multiple factors they are not going to work as made. I probably won't be posting too much because it all just looks the same. Hopefully by the end of this weekend I'll have all the components made except for the handlebars. Definitely feel like i'm running out of time here though. This will likely be another DNF. but i'm going to ride it out to the end.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Looking good!

I've been wondering about using a router on aluminum for a while. What type of bit did you use? Just a normal bit for wood?

 

[bikewhorder]

Looking good!

I've been wondering about using a router on aluminum for a while. What type of bit did you use? Just a normal bit for wood?

Ayuh. A spiral cutter probably would have been a lot better but I couldn't find one with a bearing. I would definitely make sure you have a router with a speed control and go slow. It's pretty nasty but it works.

 

[enlan]

Being a part time wood worker, I'm following your progress with great interest which brings to mind a question. Due to the limited working time of most glues what kind of adhesive are you using for your laminations?

 

[BartRidesEternal]

Being a part time wood worker, I'm following your progress with great interest which brings to mind a question. Due to the limited working time of most glues what kind of adhesive are you using for your laminations?

I'm interested in this aswell. For my wooden bike project I used 'Titebond 3', which worked fine for me in that situation.

 

[bikewhorder]

Being a part time wood worker, I'm following your progress with great interest which brings to mind a question. Due to the limited working time of most glues what kind of adhesive are you using for your laminations?

I'm using west system epoxy. Some of these glue ups take about an hour to get together. You could never do this with a one part glue in my opinion. It's pretty expensive to buy in small quantities but the place that I work buys it in fifty five gallon drums.

 

[bikewhorder]

I'm interested in this aswell. For my wooden bike project I used 'Titebond 3', which worked fine for me in that situation.

I'd be curious to see your wooden bike if you have a link to it.

 

[BartRidesEternal]

I'd be curious to see your wooden bike if you have a link to it.

Thanks, I appreciate the interest! Its not completely wood like yours!

The project stalled, because I didn't have a alignment jig at the time. Now that I have one, I wanted to build from scratch.
The build is in the 'builds section' on this forum. But here a few pictures:

Headtube.

 

[bikewhorder]

I fell well short of my goal to get all the fork parts glued up this weekend. It's going to take eight separate glueups to laminate all these parts. It was quite a wrestling match.Trying to get these parts to bend around this tight radius. I am currently one eighth of the way done. I did get my new seat posts made. And I figured out the fastening plan for my headset parts.

 

[bikewhorder]

Being 49 years old and having been obsessed with bikes for the last 45 of them it's not often that I learn something new about them that kind of makes my head explode. Tonight I wanted to make sure I got the fork dropout location right. I started researching fork offsets just to see what the accepted norms were. In my mind, increasing the distance of the axle from the fork just basically increased the head tube angle and that would make the bike more stable but sluggish. But it turns out the converse of this is true because of the "trail" effect. Trail is like the wheel of a shopping cart, and so the closer you move the axle to the head tube angle line the more stable it becomes. According to what I read 90mm is a typical 29er wheel trail, and I was relieved to see that my seat of the pants guess was almost exactly that. I also got my first part of the fork done, Three more to go. I'm very happy with the results.

 

[Captain Awesome]

Being 49 years old and having been obsessed with bikes for the last 45 of them it's not often that I learn something new about them that kind of makes my head explode. Tonight I wanted to make sure I got the fork dropout location right. I started researching fork offsets just to see what the accepted norms were. In my mind, increasing the distance of the axle from the fork just basically increased the head tube angle and that would make the bike more stable but sluggish. But it turns out the converse of this is true because of the "trail" effect. Trail is like the wheel of a shopping cart, and so the closer you move the axle to the head tube angle line the more stable it becomes. According to what I read 90mm is a typical 29er wheel trail, and I was relieved to see that my seat of the pants guess was almost exactly that. I also got my first part of the fork done, Three more to go. I'm very happy with the results.
View attachment 290242View attachment 290243View attachment 290244View attachment 290245

Research material for you!

https://books.google.com/books?id=84hF-qoR5I8C&printsec=copyright#v=onepage&q&f=false