RETROADSTER, a quad tandem
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A windscreen and a soft top are the following steps, and then the decal.
Or the decal at first ???
I want to paint just the edges of the body in green, to hide all the screwheads.
The rest will get a clear finish and maybe the border between green and wood will get white stripes.
Kai
A windscreen and a soft top are the following steps, and then the decal.
Or the decal at first ???
I want to paint just the edges of the body in green, to hide all the screwheads.
The rest will get a clear finish and maybe the border between green and wood will get white stripes.
Kai
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Some really nice work in that body, well done!
Luke.
Luke.
Good job! great lines ... now i need one :S
@OHP: It's heavy. If you want one, you better live in the flats.
We've cycled a 60km/40mls tour last weekend.
No real ascents at all, what means no problems, a nice ride.
But a climb of 100m/330ft elevation for example will kill you.
The pilots side is therefore fitted with the Alfine 11.
The 409% range of this hub makes a reasonable cadence possible.
By the way, here are the latest pics.
The tail has the color scheme I want for hiding the screws.
As you can see, I retained the wooden look.
The green has pearl effect, but I found now a normal paint would look better in combination with wood.
I'm still not really lucky with the front.
It looks too short, too wide, too straight.
Not the curvy appearance of the tail.
The headlights have to be bigger and closer together.
I'm still searching for suitable headlights.
Kai
We've cycled a 60km/40mls tour last weekend.
No real ascents at all, what means no problems, a nice ride.
But a climb of 100m/330ft elevation for example will kill you.
The pilots side is therefore fitted with the Alfine 11.
The 409% range of this hub makes a reasonable cadence possible.
By the way, here are the latest pics.
The tail has the color scheme I want for hiding the screws.
As you can see, I retained the wooden look.
The green has pearl effect, but I found now a normal paint would look better in combination with wood.
I'm still not really lucky with the front.
It looks too short, too wide, too straight.
Not the curvy appearance of the tail.
The headlights have to be bigger and closer together.
I'm still searching for suitable headlights.
Kai
Great video and looks reasonably quick to start too.
Looks like you guys had fun!
Luke.
Luke.
We had a great time last weekend at the Maker Faire Hannover.
Our velocar was not only exhibited, we offered free rides to all.
I estimate around 300 people rode with our vehicle during the weekend.
Nothing is broken, the vehicle is still in one part.
Only two small repairs, a weared braking cable and one of the chains has to be re-riveted.
Custom made cruisers from power-bikes
Explaining my somewhat odd steering mechanism to the people
Steam punk at it's finest
The guys from the next stand
Another velocar showed up. Nicely done bodywork, hand laminated over a plug.
More pics in my blog post.
Kai
Our velocar was not only exhibited, we offered free rides to all.
I estimate around 300 people rode with our vehicle during the weekend.
Nothing is broken, the vehicle is still in one part.
Only two small repairs, a weared braking cable and one of the chains has to be re-riveted.
Custom made cruisers from power-bikes
Explaining my somewhat odd steering mechanism to the people
Steam punk at it's finest
The guys from the next stand
Another velocar showed up. Nicely done bodywork, hand laminated over a plug.
More pics in my blog post.
Kai
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After nearly a year I'm working again on the color scheme of the velocar.
The front part (birch plywood) developed a lot of black fungus spots in the not so dry garage.
It looked horrible ugly
A remarkable fact is that all pine plywood parts (the rear body sides) are still in good condition , although painted with the same varnish.
Seems, birch is not really suitable for moisture exposed parts like wheels wells or vehicle bodywork in general.
To rescue the body parts I sanded the old varnish and most of the fungus down and painted it the same color like the rear body.
Luckily the most fungus spots were at the lower portions of the panels, which now are blue.
Sorry for the bad quality of the pics.
I crashed my new phone and had to take the pictures with a rather old one
The front part (birch plywood) developed a lot of black fungus spots in the not so dry garage.
It looked horrible ugly
A remarkable fact is that all pine plywood parts (the rear body sides) are still in good condition , although painted with the same varnish.
Seems, birch is not really suitable for moisture exposed parts like wheels wells or vehicle bodywork in general.
To rescue the body parts I sanded the old varnish and most of the fungus down and painted it the same color like the rear body.
Luckily the most fungus spots were at the lower portions of the panels, which now are blue.
Sorry for the bad quality of the pics.
I crashed my new phone and had to take the pictures with a rather old one
Last Thursday I made a rear window for the cabrio roof:
To get an oval shape without wrinkles, I made an additional plywood frame for the window, nearly 1 inch wide.
I clamped the frame and window together and drilled a row of holes through both.
These holes are necessary for stitching.
First, the frame alone was sewed onto the roof and the fabric folded+glued around the inner edge of the frame.
Then I sewed the glass (acrylic/plexiglass) to the frame, using the same holes again for stitching, what means I made two seams.
Sounds complicated, but is easier to make and gives the possibility of exchanging the glass when scratched.
Here you can see, my seams are far away from perfect.
It only looks good from a distance
To get an oval shape without wrinkles, I made an additional plywood frame for the window, nearly 1 inch wide.
I clamped the frame and window together and drilled a row of holes through both.
These holes are necessary for stitching.
First, the frame alone was sewed onto the roof and the fabric folded+glued around the inner edge of the frame.
Then I sewed the glass (acrylic/plexiglass) to the frame, using the same holes again for stitching, what means I made two seams.
Sounds complicated, but is easier to make and gives the possibility of exchanging the glass when scratched.
Here you can see, my seams are far away from perfect.
It only looks good from a distance
Nice work on the window and thanks for explaining how you did it!
Luke.
Luke.
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The defunct Dudley Tool Company, near me, built one bicycle, but the bike market went bust. They then built 100 wood cycle cars, 1914-1917. Both electric and gas powered. They looked pretty cool.The tail is ready build, although some refinements and minor changes are still to be done.
I have found the perfect rear lights for the Retroadster, in the style of the 30's, but with LEDs.
We have made a short trip to the Netherlands, to meet Olaf, a friend with the almost the same interests.
He has made a quadracycle, several velomobiles, cargobikes and also a lawn mower bike just for fun.
It was also fun to cycle a small tour with all these weird bikes.
Here are some photos of our "Odd-Cycles-Tour"
The red quadracycle is also an interpretation of the old Mochet Velocar and in some points closer to the original than my build.
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