More frame welding stuff

I built the bent frame parts (the overarching parts) and welded them in place. I also added a cross-piece between the front unicycle forks. I welded the rear shelf in place and welded on the backs of the eyes. I used the sheet metal from a junked washing machine. I welded pipe angles behind the eye holes to house the LED's to light up the eyes. I created the pupils by welding a large washer onto a bolt head. I also installed mounting points for the seats.

By the 26th I had the basics of the whole frame done.

Four days later I added the shelf on the back and the backs of the eyes.

Buy paint

I went to Paint Masters (3327 Brighton-Henrietta Townline Rd.) and bought primer and sandpaper. According to them, I should apply the etching primer then either apply the fill-primer while it's wet or let it dry then very lightly sand it before applying the fill-primer. I should put on a couple coats of fill-primer and sand it with 320-grit paper. I'll need to sand off all the rust on the metal first, though, which could be a bit of a pain.

First riding test

I added the rear horizontal support and the one that goes across the middle of the bottom of the seat. I got it all assembled and put the pedals on and laid a couple 2×4's across to sit on. Freewheelers (1757 Mount Hope Ave) is at the end of my street so I took it there and the owner Roger and myself tried it out. We could only get it to run backward — it seems the trail on the rear casters isn't enough to allow them to swivel.

I modified the forks for longer rake by cutting notches, bending the forks, and welding it up. Roger and I tried it again. It sort-of works: it's very difficult to control. If you get going okay, you can stumble a little and it tends to spin around to do a 180. I kind of liked it for that.

I had to fix one of the forks so it wasn't bent so much because one of the tires was actually hitting the frame.

Finish more frame parts except horizontal bars

I modified the frame so the connection from the front to the sides was rigid and I made bars to connect the seat back together. It all went together rather sloppy and I wasn't very happy with it. I decided to test the welds on the front of the side-frames and they snapped, breaking the tubing. I took a crack at fixing it but had to put it away for the day.

I decided to replace the bottom seat sides with 3/4" pipe because it's stronger than the bike tubes. (As a footnote, I used the pipe from my friend's house on Burkhard Place — it was the original water pipe that was installed 110 years ago … so if it breaks sometime in the future, that might be why.)

I also made couplers for the eyes by using 1" pipe with a slot cut in the side and bolt holes through. I mounted them to the unicycle forks. I put it all together and took some pictures.

Here's the frame with the eyes installed.

I used bigger tubing with a split and holes in the sides to connect things like the eyes.

The bottom tubes on the seat are made from 110 year-old water pipe.

They connect to the front of the frame with a pipe union and elbow.

The pipe unions don't align perfectly right away ...

... but it's pretty easy to get them to snap into position (even if the photographer is falling over) ...

... and then tighten the nut.

Assemble front-end of bike; dry-run frame assembly

I spent a bit of time getting the front-end of the frame redesigned. In my original concept, the triangular framework on around the unicycle wheel would meet the bottom seat bar at a single point. The center pole always met with the seat bar in line with the top of the fork, but I changed it so the two bars off the forks run back to the seat bar rather than to a common point which would attach to the seat bar.

The kinked tube is part of the fourth bicycle frame sacrificed to the cause.

Oh yeah, and a few days ago I went to Austin-Spencer Collision (2433 Brighton-Henrietta Townline Rd.) who were much more amenable to painting things other than cars. The "short answer" is $60/hour for materials and labor to put paint on something. I figure I can easily pay $60 in spraypaint cans alone and do a crappy job, so I'm very tempted.

This is what the right-side of the front end looks like in case the worded description is too convoluted.

My magnolia tree is coming to the end of its first spring bloom. Oh ... yeah ... and this is what the frame looks like now.

When it's taken apart, it should all fit in the back of my car.

Finish tack-welding all of rear-end components

I took a bit of a hiatus from the bike project to do something else but I finally got back to it. It took a little while to get my head around it again, but I quickly got going.

I put the seat bottom on the rear frame parts and added the diagonal cross-member (which didn't work out very close to specification, but no matter — I made it symmetrical.)

The right side of the rear frame.

Some of the cut pieces fit perfectly together ...

Pieces of threaded pipe will let me take the frame apart.