The best project completion feeling i ever had was riding down the street and people turning heads just to get a glimpse. I quickly make a few adjustments and rode like a G. At this point with all the setbacks i had during the build this was nothing new. I was so rewarding and exhilarating to take the first ride, but the seat fell off lol. Finally i was able to put on the 3 sprocket chain assembly and taking this girl for a ride. I worked through the night to fix the front fork mounting brackets, and added all brass hardware. This was a devastating occurrence, however i was not going to let it stop me seeing as i was so close to finish. I was left standing, holding the handle bars as pieces of the bike rolled all over the shop.
Low rider bike full#
The first time i put my full weight on the bike i all fell apart.
The final assembly did not go as expected. I fabricated hand grips from Zebra wood which has an incredible amount of grain figuring. Once they dried in the form i was about to glue them together and fabricate metal brackets to attache the wheels and handle bars.įor the handle bars i wanted something different, just a hint of exotic wood to make them pop. I soaked the strips of wood in hot water for 2 hours and at that point they were soft enough that i could get them over the form i made. I laminated the same wood, but this time i used a water bending technique. How could i make wood forks, which place a tremendous amount of force on the bike, with a 180 degrees bend and not have them break. All together there were 13 frame sections that needed to come together to allow the design flow. At this point I was able to glue the entire frame together with the use of floating mortise and tenon joints and reinforced them with 3/8" brass dowel rods. I laminated all the strips, alternating between dark and light for contrast and planned all the pieces to 2" thick frame parts. Wood has a braking point that once you reach it, even if you steam the wood its going give, so my frame arches were restricted in that sense, but i was able to cut thin enough strips of Black Walnut and Hard Maple that it worked. Designing the frame of the bike was more difficult then I have ever experiance before because i had no idea what it was going to look like. When i heard the guys at the Modern Maker Podcast were doing a wood bending challenge I never though I would be doing a wood low rider bike. I never though i would have the courage or skills to accomplish such an undertaking, but i surprised even myself. This was my most challenging project so far but so rewarding. In all the build took over 7 weeks to complete and i documented the entire process on Instagram and YouTube. I didn't want to use regular nuts and bolts for the connections so i opted to use all brass fasteners which gave me that classy look and it complimented the color of the frame extremely well. The bike is about 90% wood to include a solid Silver Maple seat which was power carved with a sander for final appearance.
For strength i recesses fabricated frame connections inside the frame to help with stability without loosing its wood design. Once I had an idea of what it was to look like i started the process of milling the raw lumber, bending and gluing the frame together. The initial concept and design period took me about a week to figure out, playing around with different frame option using a thin trip of wood as a visual guide. I have always been fascinated with the Low rider design freedoms and though it would look cool if it was made out of laminated strips of walnut and maple. I though about it for a bit and came up with my version of a wood Low Rider Bike. One Day I was listening to the Modern Maker Podcast and they cut out a challenge.
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