Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Back

Day 6

Day 5 1/2.

I bought a bottom bracket shell, and got my chainstays bent yesterday. The guy who sold me the bottom bracket is a master frame builder called Aldo from Quantum Cycles in Perth. I chatted with him for about 30 minutes and picked his brains as best I could. Unfortunatly I came away feeling very aprehensive about this whole venture, however I will kick on regardless.

I did feel much better after I went to Rockingham Engineering to pick up the chainstays that they had bent for me. Noel seemed genuinely interested in the project and made me promise to bring Hook down to him when it is finished so he can see it. He also made me feel better about my welding and engineering abilities. (Thanks Noel)

What can I say about day 6. If you want me to be nice and not swear than I have nothing to say.

Today was an absolute crap day, I spend all day mitering, coping and filing metal but the worst part was that I was by myself as Andy has work commitments until March and was not there to laugh with (or at).

I made the dropouts, they took about 2 hours each. I blunted one jigsaw blade, broke another one and snapped a hacksaw blade making them, not to mention, de-hydrating myself in the tin shed on a 37C day. I cut my fingers so many times they look like the serated edges of a saw. I also filled my fingers full of metal shavings.

Here is a tip for young players - use gloves, drink plenty of water and last but not least buy a set.

I then coped out the end of the mainframe tube to enable the bottom bracket to fit properly. I can not tell you how difficult this was. I needed two hands to hold the mainframe tube, another one to hold a block of wood, yet another one to operate the clamp and a further hand to align the whole lot up on the drill press. Well unfortunately I have testicles and not tentacles (well not really but you know what I mean) and after much jiggling and juggling I got the bloody thing all lined up.

I was just over halfway through this evolution when the drill press reached its maximum depth. I had not set the lot up high enough. I could have (and very nearly did) cried.

After about another hour of huffing and puffing and swearing and just plain old ranting and raving I got it all lined up again and finished the job. (I cant wait until Andy has to do his I am just going to sit back and laugh and then go fishing.)

I then mitered the derailleur stem to fit onto the mainframe and bottom bracket. I did not too bad a job if I must say so myself.

The final job for the day was to bend and cut the seat frame tubes to lenght. At least this went without a hitch so I finished the day on a good note.

Day 7

Day seven was a great day. Nearly everything went according to plan and Hook is even starting to look like a recumbent.

I did get upset early in the day when I found that the jig Andrew and I had spent 20 + hours building did not allow the mainframe to sit under the drill press in the correct position.  We made the support brackets to far away from the edge and I could not fit it no matter what. 

Right at this point I was going to throw my hands up in the air and say Who gives a dam about recumbents anyway.   My bum  fits my wedgie perfectly and who cares about penile numbness.  I mean I am 40 years old now anyway. 

AS I was shutting the shed door a voice said how about moving the brackets onto a piece of 4x2 and giving it another try.  Well I did and from there on everything went great.

I drilled the rest of the holes that needed to be done.  The chainstays were squashed into shape, the dropouts fitted.  After a trial fitting the whole rearend of HOOK was brazed together.

Boy was I happy, (those of you that have build a bent before know how I felt) I quickly released the rear wheel from my wedgie and put it in place.  Fit like a glove.  I was just over the moon.

So with all this enthusiasm I fitted the head tube and put on a set of 20” forks. 

HOOK is now a rolling chassis.  Well not really I needed the rear wheel back for my trip to work in the morning and the head tube still needs to be brazed in place, but at least I can say that I have now built a recumbent that has turned a wheel, albeit just being pushed around the back yard.  

I looked up at some stage and my wife and kids were standing at the rear door with this silly look on their faces, they were wondering what the Old Boy was doing Yipping and Yahooing around the backyard pushing this piece of muffler pipe around, so I sheepishly took HOOK back into hiding in the workshop.

I will not be able to do anymore work on HOOK for 2 weeks as I (begrudgingly) promised my wife that I would catch up on the overdue domestic duties next weekend.   Lucky me a whole weekend of gardening.

Day 8

Well haven’ t I been a slacker, It has now been a couple of weeks and I have not updated this page.  I know how you all look forward to it so here goes.

I am at the test ride stage of HOOK.   I have actually riden it for about 10 kilometre’s already, and Boy you can not stop me from smiling. And I can not get my son Robert to get off the bloody thing so that I can keep working on it.  I might have to ground him for a few days so I can finish it off.

Anyway, I finally got all the bits brazed on like the Head tube, and the seat frame, Idler arm etc etc etc, but not without some dramas.

Firstly I was trying to find out where to drill the hole for the seat mounting bolt and me being me just placed the seat in place - loosly did up the seat stays and jumped up on the seat, Well you guessed it the seat slipped and I went base over apex onto the ground,  My kids were laughing like you would not believe.  Luckily I did not injure myself and only had to rebraze part of the seat.

This done I bolted the whole lot together securely. 

I then needed to make a steering system.  This is where all the dramas started.  I could not come up with a plan so I took the bike down to the local bike shop (SAFETY BAY BIKES) and KYM the owner spent a couple of hours with me going over different types of options I had. 

I finally decided on a upmarket extention on a set of upmarket mountain bike  handlebars which I got given to me for nothing.

I raced home and built the steering system - tried it and threw the lot in the trash.

Plan two was called for.  I got another set of mountain bike handlebars, cut the bit that goes into the headtube in half and welded on an extention.  I then went down to the local hardware and bought som 5/16” threaded rod and made a 30” long bolt.

This seemed to work fine.  I had about 6” of rod left sticking out of the top so what do you do with that - cut it off right.  I started cutting off the bolt and realised that my thumb was in the way of the hacksaw blade after I had  hacksawed through half of my thumb.  Blood was pouring out all over the place, my son Robert was in a panic and my daughter Kirsty ran away yelling “I’ll get the band-aids dad”. 

After a couple of hours rest, I decided that my thumb was alright to work with again. 

I needed some cable stops of old bike frames and as I was getting them off with a cole chisel and a 4 lb hammer, my bloody thumb got in the way again.  There was Robert in a panic again, Kirsty running away saying “I;ll get the band-aids dad” and me running around the back yard going F*&^   F%$# F%$# F%$#@, the neighbour even popped her head over the fence to see what the hell was going on. 

Well needless to say that was it for that day. Except to say that I went for a test ride without brakes or gears. 

All the Neighbours came out yelling “Hey look at Rob” or “Look at the funny bike”.  They even came and took pictures.

It was a great feeling.

Well all that is left now is to set up the brakes, and gears and ride HOOK, so thank you for reading these pages and If you have any questions please feel free to e-mail me.

I will be adding new pages as I help Andy build his bike when he gets back, and I already have plans to make another SWB USS bike and a Trike so stay tuned.

Read Andrews version of events Here

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