day eleven

i decided that sisnce i am going to be riding this bike i want to have a saddlebag on one side. i did some sketches the made a pattern. i traced the pattern to this sheet of .040 al, then i added 3/4in around the outside to allow for my radiused corners that i am going to do on this box.

here i am test fitting the side panel to the frame making sure i have proper clearance all the way around.
i just used a scrap of 1 1/8in tube as a dolly to hammer the edge over. having a tight radius bend in the dolly makes the corneres on the pattern bend nicely.
here it is all radiused. if you work your bends slowly as you more around the part you will end up with out wrinkled corners like you would if you were to hammer each area to its full arc before moving forward.

on the second side i desided to try starting out my bend with a flanging tool(aka cresent wrench) this helped allot to define the edgeand keep my flange height more consistant. i use this method all the time.
i am going to jazz this bag up a bit with a grid pattern of swedged holes like the ones i did on the plate mount. here i am laying out where they are going to end up. i center drilled them with a 1/8in pilot. i will wait untill the box is hammer and dollied after welding to swedge the holes. straightening the box with a bunch of swedged holes would make for a tricky job so i will treat the holes once the box is square.
cleaco your part down flat and scribe and cut  an even line around the edge so that your part has an even flange height. this will make the center strip easyer to cut and hopefully make your box have a better chance of ending up square.
tack all around the box before doing any final welds, if you can do any hammer and dolly work before sewing the box up.
when your done welding do any hammer and dolly work you need to to straighten out any warpage due to welding, then you can use a grinder and a body file to take the welds down.

here it is sitting on the bike, next up building the top for the box and choosing a latch.

day ten?

in this section i am building a license plate mount that attaches to the rear axle. its layed out on .080 6061 al sheet. the axle hole is 20mm .
here it is with all three holes drilled and the sides folded up. i used a small pan brake to bend the sides up. make sure to allow for your bend radius
i built this swedging die that you clamp down on the sheet metal to give it extra strength and cut weight.
here is the mount all welded togeather for the plate backer i used .032 al to cut weight since its not really structural. i will be selling these in the pangea speed store soon, feel free to email me and i will whip one up for you if your interested.

day nine

here is the pile of tubing i recived in the mail, you can get mandrel bent tubing for pretty cheep off of ebay.
i had to machine off about .050 off of the i.d. of the exhaust clamps to allow for the larger tube dia.
here is a shot of the lathe doing its thing. i just ran a boaring bar back and forth a few times and it did the trick.
i had an idea of how i wanted the exhaust to run but wasnt set in stone on anything. its alway nice on a setup like this where you have really loose requirements that you have to meet.
here are the first few bends all layed out. when i was doing my aprenticeship a guy named gary kendall showed me a trick that really helps out allot when working with tube. when laying out a cut fold a piece of paper in half and wrap it around the tube and make sure that the paper lines up even on both sides then mark it with a sharpie. what this does is makes sure that your keeping a straight line around the tube and if your working on a bent tube it helps to reduce the chance of "cheating the bend". allot of people like to substitute tape for the paper but tape is designed to bend around a corner so it doesnt always give you a straight line.
here the pipes are tacked togeather and seam to be fitting up well.
this is basicly how the tips are going to sit i am going to extend them a little bit to clear the frame but you get the idea.

another shot.

day five.

here i am building a mounting jig to locate the pangea speed axle plates on my table. i have measured out the axle height on the centerline of the axle and the center of the slot. i also spaced the plates to accept the hub with out needing to machine new spacers. i tacked the entire jig before welding anything fully to reduce warpage of the jig.

this is what the jig looks like when its fastened to the table. i marked the centerling of the jig and measured 100 times to make sure its was square.

grind off all the extra metal from where the previous frame points had connected. i used a big 3in grinder to knock them down then 24g, 50g, scotch brite roloc discs and a single cut file tofinish the areas.

this is just a basic tube bender that can be purchased at harbor freight. i measured the bend angles with an angle finder then bent the tubes as close as possible to where i needed them to be.

figure out your seat stay width based on your measurment you used for your axle plate location. (make sure your chain and sprocket are going to clear the seat stay)

figuring out how to cutout the slot for the axle plate was a bit of a trick. what i did was clamp the bent portion of the tube in a vice with 2x4's the 2x4's allow the tube to sit in the vice square. once you have the tube squared up you and use a block on the side of the tube to measure off to determine the centerline of the tube. this all might sound like a big hassle but it really helps you get the relationship between the axle plate slot and the bend clocked in the propper relationship.

here are the seat stays resting roughly in there new place called home. always make sure to test fit stuff you can really avoid some head aches that way.

another test fit with the slots and tube caps welded on, for the tube caps i just used some 1/8 in strap, cut it with a band saw, weld, and grind her smooth

another view of the tube end test fit.

day four

after determining the desired ground clearance i came up with this jig that will hold the frame at that height, this willbe welded to the frame and screwed on to the table top. if you have a metal table just tack some posts to the table and that will do

draw a centerline down the middle of your table the find the center of your jig and mark it with a sharpie. slide the stand under the bike and make sure the bike is centered over the jig. at this point come up with some way to lock the front wheel in place centered on the table.

make sure you have everything square and straight then tack the frame to the jig. make sure you do some pretty hefty tacks because you are going to be joncing, hammering, beating on the bike and you dont want it to move.