Building a cut-down bike scooter, part 1

I had a very exciting commission this summer. My client had seen kids in Cuba riding kick scooters cut down from broken bicycles, and wanted one made. We didn't have any photos to work from, so I got to develop my own design.

This is what I ended up building. It is lots of fun to ride! The deck is made of sprocket gears and sections of wheel rim, and the rear dropouts hold a wheel from a kids' bike.

I watched for discarded mountain bikes with sturdy frames, and picked up a bike with partially rectangular tubes and front shocks, but no front wheel. I pulled a decent wheel from another bike and swapped in a set of cruiser handlebars.

I use a cutting disc in an angle grinder to cut bikes apart. To start, I separated the top tube from the head tube, and the down tube from the bottom bracket. That left the pieces seen above: the front shocks, head tube, and angled down tube, and the rest of the bike.

The plan was to wrap the down tube around the wheel so that it is ultimately plumb, straight up and down. I opted to cut out wedges and cold-bend the tubing before welding the bends shut again.

In the photo above, I've marked the wedge that I intend to remove with soapstone.

After cutting out the wedge, I was able to bend the remaining tube like a hinge, closing the wedge to a weldable line.

Here's a close-up.

I removed a similar wedge at the second bend in the down tube, so that the last segment will be plumb. Then I removed the finish in the area of the welds and tack-welded the bends closed.

The plumb section of down tube did not come nearly close enough to the ground to support the deck, so the next step was to find a way to extend it (and hold the rest of the scooter up).

Turning a bark-edged bangle

I prepared a stack of bangle blanks a while ago. This time I chose the interesting bark-edged one on top.

It's always best, but I find that to avoid knocking bits of bark off as I turn, I have to keep the gouge very sharp and the cuts shallow. The bark itself dulls the gouge quickly, so there's more sharpening involved. But it's worth it.

Once the shape is developed and the exterior rough-sanded on the lathe, I remove the core with the same hole saw that I used to mark it initially.

After some careful sanding and a walnut oil finish, here's the bangle! It sold quickly.

Forging sturdy toggle clasps

I've had trouble recently with storebought clasps breaking, especially on my bicycle chain bracelets. The standard lobster clasps are difficult to operate at best, but they are also too brittle and easily snapped. Toggle clasps (rod-and-loop) are easier to use but aren't any stronger. So I decided to try making my own.

I don't have an actual coal forge, and my anvil is tiny, but the torch is up to the heating job and I don't need much of an anvil table for this work. I get a finish nail up to workable temperature, just red-hot, and then hammer the centre section flat.

In the photo above you can see an unmolested finish nail at right. The rest have been heated, hammered, and quenched in a little tub of cold water.

After grinding and filing the ends smooth and dull, I drill out the centre to take a small lead of cord.

The loops of the toggle clasps are made of heavy wire. I use standard jeweler's wire-bending tools to create one large loop.

Then, a smaller tool to make a smaller loop in a figure 8. It takes some oomph to bend the heavy wire in a tight radius like this.

Then I use a hacksaw to cut the loops free of the wire bale. Side cutters or snips would deform the circles too much.

The free ends are on opposite sides of the loop.

For these, I heat them closer to the melting point. After red, the metal turns orange and then bright yellow, which is where I want it for forge-welding the free ends closed. When it's hot enough, I lay it on the anvil and hammer the overlaps into each other so that the whole loop lies flat.

This is what the finished clasp looks like on a choker. More fun than shopping for findings, much stronger than commercial clasps, and appropriately grungy and rough in appearance. And easy to close and remove.

Finishing a bicycle frame keyboard stand

Having found that a single bicycle frame is readily cut down into one side of a support stand, I chose another frame and prepared it in a similar way.

It was a different size and of different geometry, so I took some time to ensure that the top supports were level.

Can't ask for better than that.

When the alignment was right, I clamped and welded the base.

The next step was to commit to the placement of the lower support tubes. I aligned the first so that it was both level itself and potentially level with its counterpart on the other frame. (There's a limited range of adjustment.)

Once I had tack-welded that support in place, I leveled across to the second frame and positioned its lower support to match. In the photo above, you can see that the lower support tube on the second frame hasn't been cut and is still crossing the angled vertical tube.

And here are both sides of the stand, welded and ready for cleanup.

To keep the left and right support frames from toppling over if I get excited, they are fixed to a plywood base. I marked and drilled through fir support blocks and inserted axles to hold what were formerly the rear dropouts of the bicycles. The frames just slide over the axles and then rotate up into position, firmly attached.

I positioned my pedals where I like them, and nailed thin strips of wood in place to hold them there. It's nice that they don't slide around now.

To clean up the look of the stand, I wire-brushed all of the old finish off the frames.

Down to bare metal, I like their look a lot more. I coated all of the metal parts with wax as a basic rust barrier, although I will have to keep that finish maintained as it is not very durable.

With a couple of coats of black stain on the plywood base, the stand is complete. Custom fit to me and my keyboards, interesting to look at, and more comfortable to play at.

I also like the fact that, other than the hunk of plywood I had lying around, the stand is made of abandoned and recycled parts.

Similar instrument and other stands and tables are available by custom order from my shop. If you're interested in knowing more, please contact me at david@hardwareaesthetic.com.

Welding a bicycle frame instrument stand

I play keyboards in a Tom Petty tribute band called Full Moon Fever (fullmoonfever.ca). I don't like my commercial keyboard stand -- I play seated, and it has an X-shape that prevents my knees from fitting below my instruments.

I also have a lot of bicycle frames lying around, stripped of their parts for jewelry and sculpture. I thought I'd use the tubing to weld a custom keyboard stand.

The front forks fit into the seat tube, and if the forks become the base of the stand, then the down tube becomes the top support, and the height to it is just about right. Convenient!

I marked the down tube to be long enough to hold my organ, and cut the top tube long enough to support my piano and reach back to the seat tube to be welded in place.

The freed section of frame consists of the remainder of the down tube, the support section of top tube, and the head tube joining them. I flipped it over and checked the fit. So far so good.

To complete the base of the stand, I cut the rear stays and dropouts free of the rest of the frame, and moved them down to meet the front forks.

I marked the length and angle of the top tube and cut it to meet the seat tube.

The section of down tube still attached to the head tube slides nicely over the remaining section of top tube. So there's the basic shape: standing on the dropouts, with a long support for the lower keyboard and a shorter one for the top.

With the seat stays cut to meet the front forks and clamped in place, it stands up and looks about right.

I wire brushed all of the joints free of finish, then welded everything but the section that will hold the lower keyboard. I want to reserve the option to adjust its fit later when I make the other side of the stand from another bike frame.

I tried a test fit with the left half of my keyboards still supported by the commercial stand. It works!

In the next post, I'll describe making the left side support like this one, and then a base and custom pedal board to hold it all together.