Saturday, March 26, 2011

More Long-Tom Photos

 Notice that one of the tubes welded above the bottom bracket (where the crank goes) is narrower than the other one.  I had to flatten it so it wouldn't interfere with the gears.  These welds look pretty good even without grinding.  Ha!

 Here are the two tubes that go around the extended headset tube.
The welding is almost decent.

 I had lots of clamps trying to hold these tubes down by the bottom bracket so I could weld them.  I welded them at the bottom bracket area, made adjustments in the line-up of the front end, then welded the tubes around the extended headset.

 Instead of welding a tube on top of the platform tubes ... I welded it to that big tube underneath the platform.

 The 1" diameter tube wouldn't bend to match-up, so I cut a wedge out of it, bent it, slid it into the big tube, and welded it in place.

 Once all that was welded in place ...
I shortened the extended headset tube.

With a front wheel stuck on there ... 
this is what it looks like at the moment.
I place my hands on the front cargo floor area and pressed down
until I had lifted myself off the floor ...
It didn't buckle under 245 lbs. of direct weight in that small area.
I think it will work as a cargo bike.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Long-Tom Frame Work

Hard to see much about it ... but there is the basic frame
I'll end up shortening the extension of the headset tube a bit.
The 20" front headset was slightly diagonal to the rear bicycle frame,
so I pushed a helper bar into the neck hole to tug with while I pushed
on the bottom of the forks ... and tweaked it into lining up.
Then I welded it down into place.
It's coming along.

More detail fotos tomorrow.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Progress on Tom's Design

This piece of EMT conduit fits over the headset ... 
extending it down below the cargo platform.

As I've said before ... I stick things together with my MIG welder and clean them up with the 4-1/2" grinder.  Above is the extension for the headset.  And it is solid.

No beautiful beads or even edges.

I just tack it, tack it some more ...
then try to fill in some of the gaps.