RatRodRower

[Dr. Tankenstein]

Just caught up on this thread, awesome project and work.
I’d keep it ‘classy’ black hardware, a nice medium stain/poly on the wooden bits.

Again, excellent work brother!


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[SwissGuy]

Just caught up on this thread, awesome project and work.
I’d keep it ‘classy’ black hardware, a nice medium stain/poly on the wooden bits.

Again, excellent work brother!


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First of all thank you for the kind words!

Color wise I'm thinking around the same lines: black for the railing hardware, metal as it is for the bike parts, white rim with a red rim band or painted red inside and the wood a bit darker than it is now.
But this has probably to wait until spring, as I only can do it outside and we are in the negative range of temperature already...

 

[SwissGuy]

Today was another day, I spent some serious time to make my rower work better. One big problem I discovered very soon while using the machine was, the rub of the rope. After going through several sets of ropes of various thickness, I stopped using the machine for a while to rethink the rope arrangement.

Then, a few days ago I came up with this setup:

It was better, but now it rubbed on the eyelets of the screws and produced a lot of noise and vibration. But at least the direction I was heading was right...
So today I grabbed all the pieces at hand (due to lockdown my favourite DIY shop is closed) and came up with this:

It made it for about half an hour of rowing, then again...

So the rope was still rubbing while it crossed over itself on the freewheel. I realized, that I had to bring the guiding system as close as possible to the freewheel to provide as much grip as possible (at least about one turn around the freewheel) and in the same time avoid crossing the rope over itself. To get there I had to get rid of the spacers first, but with this setup the rope is save from hopping of the freewheel.
Here's my final setup (for now):

No more crossover:

And also much cleaner underneath:

So as soon as the lockdown is lifted I will replace the eyelet guide with another pulley and then it should be done... hopefully!

 

[SwissGuy]

One and about a half year since the last update... time flys!
The last two days I worked on piecing together an instructable for the rower and while at it, I came up with the (hopefully) final solution to the rope routing problem. I was so annoyed by it, that I didn't use the rower for almost a year now. Every now and then I changed the rope setup without getting better results. But the solution I found now is by far the most promising I came up with:
3 long bolts with brass tubes and 3 sets of bearings and washers did the trick:

Like this the rope doesn't rub on itself and it doesn't wander up and down the freewheel unit anymore! It also stays on the corrugated part and here the grip of the rope on the freewheel is enough to get a decent pull without slipping.

Here's a walkaround video:



And me rowing:



I'm working on more video content right now...

Until then: Row On!

 

[SwissGuy]

Produced a little video of the rower in all it's glory:

 

[SwissGuy]

Yeah, The RatRodRower made it into the group of finalists in the Bicycle Speed Challenge over at instructables.com

 

[SwissGuy]

Woohoo First Prize!
Ok, the actual first prize (dubbed Grand Prize) went to a really cool homebuilt electric commuter bike that really deserves the win, but the prize money gives me the option to finally buy the repair part for my Buggy Trike!

 

[RustyGold]

Congrats! Well deserved!

 

[SwissGuy]

Finally managed to upgrade the seat of the rower today:

Started with a cheap yoga mat and some leftover jeans fabric:

Three layers of mat, edge trimmed:

Final layer of mat, stapled to the edge of the board:

All covered with fabric:

Edge trimmed with screwed on strap:

Done:

And I also hid the spoke holes with some blue tape: