Made my own

[mickle]

Very impressive indeed bicyclos.

 

[Bigtwin]

That's a tremendous bit of work. Hats of to you Sir - looks like it's just popped out of a pro production shop.

Hard question to put, but how hard is the welding aspect. Been thinking of buying a welding set-up for while, but am insure how hard it is to get to a stage where I'd trust my life to my work on a fast long downhill. Do you just test everything with a big FO hammer, and if it hold, that's strong enough?

 

[bicyclos]

Bigtwin
Hard question to put, but how hard is the welding aspect. Been thinking of buying a welding set-up for while, but am insure how hard it is to get to a stage where I'd trust my life to my work on a fast long downhill

How do I start with this one? I took a gamble after a bit of searching on the web before buying a welder. Mig welding is fairly easy to learn and fun too. I am hooked on fusing metal together now. For welding bike tube I had to buy a welder which could be turned down to less than 30 amps output or you would just blow holes in the thin metal. For the hobbist level and reliable make, the Clarke range seem to be most reliable. I bought a Clarke 90EN which you can use with an argon/Co2 bottle or fluxcore gasless wire. Because of lack of funds I went down the gasless route. I will have to admit, the welds are a bit messy compared to gas but I have just developed a way to gain decent welds then just tidy them up with a flap disk.
My brother tried to pull apart two bits of metal I welded together after he laughed at the work in hand but could not break the joint which made me smile...

I have done stress tests on off cut pieces of tube etc before welding the main pieces so I dont foul the project and have a warm up session on scrap metal before starting on the project. It has worked for me and it is the first of many. I have done nearly 100 miles on the Steely so far and it just feels more comfortable the more I ride it. I went to work on the DF bike today for a change and it didnt feel a good a ride as the bent. Ive been spoilt A few pics with the new bars and bags fitted.

Please feel free to pose any questions and I will try and help if I can.

 

[Bigtwin]

Top info - many thanks.

Will now expand my "when the missus isn't around" reading to various suppliers of welding comestibles' websites.

Stand by for idiot questions aplently...

 

[peanut]

very impressive well done. Your welding looks a lot like mine (I used to weld up my classic cars .) gas is such an improvement

 

[bicyclos]

Cheers for the replies. A good place to browse is http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/ which I have gained a lot of knowledge regards welding and fabrication plus a great friendly site like this one.

Had a good chat with my brother this morning about electric powered bikes and kits you can buy. Thinking about buying a cheap second hand electric bike for the bits or buying a kit. I am going to look into this side a little deeper.....

Regards

Leon

 

[dan_bo]

Been on the ceeways site at all Bicyclos?

 

[bicyclos]

dan_bo
Been on the ceeways site at all Bicyclos?

Yes I have come across this website before. I am thinking of buying some plain steel crank shells sometime from there.
There is a good place near Pontefract where I get my stock mild steel. Because of my setup and lack of funds I can only play around with mild steel tubing. Its cheap easy to work with and I can build a bent which is comparitively light. I am not a weight tweeny as I am not into carbon fibre or burnt plastic as its sometimes called.
My type of cycling is not to break the hour record but to have fun and enjoy cycling to work and back, more so now with bent riding.