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It's starting to look like something but I have such a long way to go.
SWB0 The Flying Dutchman
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That's going to be one incredible bike when it's done. It absolutely blows my mind how you're bending and shaping that wood into such graceful curves! Do you have to soak the wood in anything before you bend it, or is the wood a more flexible type when the pieces are cut so thin? I've only ever seen wood-bending used to make antique airplane wings, but as I recall, they only use one thin layer of wood that's been soaked in water, and then it retains whatever form it's been bent to as it dries.
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In my previous attempts I used steam bending to bend slightly thicker pieces of wood. The steam heats up the lignon in the wood and you can actually feel it "give" when you bend it around the form and then when it cools it holds its shape more or less. For this build, I'm just using super thin layers and I've eliminated any sharp bends from the design. This is a video from five years ago showing the process. You have to move fairly fast once it cools off, it's not bending anymore.
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I got the second half of my "top tube" clamped up last night. I think i've also finally decided on how i'm going to do the dropouts which has been one of the biggest Design challenges of this project. Originally the top was fixed and the bottom one pivoted but I realized that wasn't really going to work so I'm going to try to make them so that they can pivot top and bottom to allow for maximum movement for the suspension. The whole reason for using wood on this build is to take advantage of its flexibility to create a suspension system. I'm a little worried that my parts are too strong to bend but I figure I can just sculpt away material like a termite after it's all built until I get the desired amount of flex from the wood. It looks fairly simple from the side view but there's quite a bit going on with the pivots and bushings and offsets to clear the hubs and cog et cetera. They need to be super rugged and not allow the wheels to shift from side to side. Moving parts are always difficult. I'm doing a lot of "guessing" as far as the structure. The problem with wood is you can't cut it and reweld it like you can with steel. You kind of have to get it right on the first try. It's going to be a challenge for sure.
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As mentioned previously I have been struggling a little bit with the engineering side of this build, but luckily there's youtube to the rescue. This video explains, in layman's terms, how to overcome the challenges I'm dealing with in securing the wheels to the frame and allowing the dropouts to pivot. I wasn't quite sure how to articulate it but this guy spells it out very clearly. 
My fabrication skills are lagging significantly. This is an utterly amazing build:
Mad Crazy Skills indeed! Reviewed this build a while back and couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. A metal colossal squid. Totally awesome.
When this build is done, I really would love to see the Flying Dutchman and L'Angelo Di Ferro standing side by side.
They both breath the same spirit!
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Yes I've been dreaming up a lineup of all my builds. Also the Elgin Osprey and the '37 Elfmen deluxe. Right now they're all in a sad dilapidated state But they can be resurrected.
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So because of the sequence of how this frame needs to be assembled it's relatively easy right now to shape the suspension seat post components, but eventually they need to be glued into the top tubes, at which point shaping them will be Incredibly difficult. So I need to figure out how much flex to give them by subtracting wood. They are currently extremely rigid. I may have to go as far as tying them together with the brackets that will hold the adjustable aluminum seat post section. I was hoping to get all of the wood done and then work on the metal parts but this is something that kind of needs to happen before I can go too much further.
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The Renaissance Man
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I've been having a little wood shaping anxiety lately So I decided to start milling lumber for the forks and do a drawing of the top view. I'm glad I did. It showed me a lot of things that I needed to see. I changed the geometry of the bike a good bit so that changed the shape of the down tube enough that I had to modify the form. Iwas also curious how much the fork lumber weighed at the start and it's 32 pounds. I'm hoping to keep the whole bike under forty pounds when it's all done.
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I don't know why but this cracked me up. Epic build, I can't even imagine what goes into designing and building a bike like this. Kudos!
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I wasn't kidding.I was a little nervous about getting into the shaping process. And tonight I almost messed up pretty bad when my dull bandsaw blade wandered a bit past my line. Luckily I still had enough wood on the other side that I could shift the center line over a little and still get it where I wanted it. I still have
to cove out the center section but i'm super happy about how it's coming along. It's starting to get a little bit of flex to it. I was worried that I was going to have to completely remove the center but i'm confident now that it will be just fine as sort of like an I beam shape.
