Building a cut-down bike scooter, part 2

I decided that the deck of the scooter would be built on the top tube of the bicycle. Flipped upside down, the seat tube could extend upward to meet the down tube, which had been wrapped around the front wheel but didn't come close enough to the ground to meet the deck.

So, I separated the seat stays from the top tube.

The seat post sleeve and gusset would drag on the ground, so I removed them also.

Then, with some trial-and-error fitting, I decided where to cut the seat tube and separated it from the stays. The photo below shows the two sections of the bike that remained.

To join the inverted seat tube stub to the now-plumb end of the down tube, I decided to run the seat post through the seat tube and up into the down tube. I brushed the finish off the seat tube and drilled holes to allow for rosette welds, which would help join the seat post and tubes.

With the seat tube installed (forcibly, with a mallet) it was ready to weld.

It was a fussy business getting the alignment right, so that the deck was level and the correct height off the ground. When I was satisfied with it, I tack-welded it all together.

The remaining challenge was to modify the stays to hold a smaller wheel from a child's bike and tack the whole thing together, which I'll show in the next post.