Cheeep hard case project

Originally Posted by SIII

You were getting Terry excited, a picture of him on a bike classed as 'Porn', maybe he thought the limey wimen were into rigger glove wearing mature gentlemen !!! RGWMG as it is now called

Yup, excited. If anything I do can be considered porn, my day/year is made.

[Jayneflakes]

Originally Posted by Bibio

ooohhh dear, porn for Jayne

Hell yeah!

Originally Posted by Terry Lee

Have I committed some forum faux pas?

Hell no!

Originally Posted by garynortheast

Far from it but you may find Jayne turning up here and getting a bit excited about the recumbent.

I built my own recumbent a while back with a friend of mine and it was a wild ride. Unfortunately I got the head angle slightly wrong which resulted in an alarming speed wobble at anything above 10MPH!

I love recumbent bikes, no really I do. Years and years of Mountain biking and then some rather aggressive surgery has worn out parts of my body that I need to ride my push iron. A recumbent was the answer and so as an experiment I set about making one with the help of a good friend who is a professional welder. I tried welding once and made such a hash of it, I nearly set my self alight!

I am greatly interested in the twin pivot frame, does it handle similar to the twin pivot clown bikes that were popular in the late 90s?

More recently I discovered Cruzbikes, and fell in love with them. Sadly we have no importer (well this was the case when I contacted them) that will bring them to the UK. They now offer a three wheeled device and it looks very clever, but again no chance of getting one in the UK!

Anyway, yeah, love the bike.

[Bibio]

cruzbikes.. how much!!! jezzzuzuuzzzzz my mate could knock those out no problem. how the hell is something so simple so bloody expensive

Originally Posted by Jayneflakes

Hell yeah!

I am greatly interested in the twin pivot frame, does it handle similar to the twin pivot clown bikes that were popular in the late 90s?

The head angles were key as well and I made several adjustments. Small changes in angles made a huge difference in stability vs steerability. It was that compromise thingie. The effort was more an experiment and artistic effort rather than practical. Translation... it rides like a piece of %$#@. It did attract some attention from a local documentarian though. There's a number of videos on my channel chronicling various levels of success. In the first ride attempt below, there's evidence of tooth marks on my forehead where the ghost ring got caught on my wire wheel. When that happens, an object can rise up and smite you, even though wearing a face shield. This was the night before the big ride day. This machine is quite evil and will bite you at any opportunity. We have formed an uneasy truce and I can ride without injury if I don't relax my guard.

Here's some recumbent porn of the KrankiKobra and a much safer trike I built.



I've put a lot of miles on the trike in the past 3 years and still brings a smile to my face. It handles like a high performance airplane. And old men have a hard time falling off or out of it. But, if you attempt a tail slide in front of several brothers and sister-in-laws, you may end up with the trike on top of you with three broken ribs... two days before a Dominican vacation

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Terry Lee

When I built my airplane...

Ace line to be able to use in any DIY discussion! I salute you!
To have survived several hundred hours of operation all the more so.

Any more details on the plane?

Chris (DIY rebreathers and other diving equipment...)

Okay, back on topic. The 5052 AL I picked up yesterday is friendly to forming, with a big enough lever. A simple tool I built for forming my recumbent seats consists of two 1.5" tubes fixed into a two handled frame. I had to refresh my bend math for starting at the proper offset. So far I have $20CAD into this project and I didn't want to screw up. It actually worked out pretty close.


It fits on the bike right where I want it. I plan on raising it up about 1-1.5"s so the top box will ride further aft. The widths of the toolboxes are a tad over 19", so it will ride over the rear tail piece. I have numerous hard points to tie into, and haven't yet made a decision. One of the design criteria I have is to make no structural changes to the bike and to allow for complete install or removal in a matter of minutes. Have I mentioned that I'm a extreme lazy individual? I would rather spend time drinking beer than performing droll tasks. Initial dry fit looks good.




This weekend, I'll make the big purchase. The two side cases are $34CAD each and the top box is $45CAD. Projected fittings cost and incidentals added should bring the total damage to aprox $160CAD. Plus a thousand hours of free labour.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Ace line to be able to use in any DIY discussion! I salute you!
To have survived several hundred hours of operation all the more so.

Any more details on the plane?

Chris (DIY rebreathers and other diving equipment...)

An old web page here.

[BRAG ON=] I flew it over thousand hours in four years. Set a number of world speed records. I think I posted a link to an Arctic flight in another post. [/BRAG OFF]

Absolutely the best homebuilt aircraft in the world. Many examples in the UK.

Currently $147CAD into the build. Two side cases and one upper. Unfortunately, the upper is about .25" too shallow to secure my helmet. In an ideal world,where everything I see is rose coloured and the birds are singing on Snow White's shoulders, the whole assembly would install and remove the same as the pillion pad/rear cowl. I'm not sure I can do that with enough security. But, darnit, I'll try. How cool would that be? Here's the taped up progress so far.

Later that weekend...

I need to space the AL sheet up a tad so no rubbing occurs on the nicely finished factory panels. I had some copper tubing that I cut into 1" segments.


I know the advantages of using anti-vibration mounts, so I found some rubber ends that I punched a hole into. The two forward rubber pieces need to be slightly shorter than the aft ones. I've always had good luck spinning things in my hand drill against sharp edges, in this case a running band saw blade.


Here's the spacers and their new home.




continued on the next post...

...continued from last post

With the aluminum sheet installed, the rails for the upper box can be located. These will be riveted on with lots of aircrafty lightning holes drilled.


The upper box will have the option of being slid fore and aft. I'm not sure if that's useful or not. If anything, it allows me to adjust the CofG

This is close to the final placing of the upper and side boxes.