Hi yes, I have a fascination with the penny farthing and my Dads bike is a replica that was built in South Australia in 1983.



The biggest hassle with it, is that nearly every time I ride it, I manage to break spokes in the front wheel. They are made out of 1/8 stainless steel welding rods and threaded into the bronze hub.




The stainless is too hard and they have a stress point at the end of the threads. Also the spoke pattern is radial so at any one time all the weight is supported by one spoke. This is compounded by the torque of pedalling applied to the centre trying to wind the wheel forward and loading the spokes fore and aft as well.
So in short I'm not game to use it for fear of more damage.

Paul (Landyacht) said we should build a couple of new ones.

The rim of the front wheel seemed to be the main stumbling point in the construction of a farthing.

I spent too much time roaming round the bike forums trying to work out the methods used to build a wheel.
There were lots of different ideas and each one presented a different problem.

I reckon I could make some dies to reverse roll pipe to make a double walled rim out of 25mm ERW tube.
So it has got me off my bum to finally getting my tube roller build back on track.
I had machined up the dies many years ago, snuggled up next to my diesel fired workshop heater. It was during those freezing winter days I worked on them doing all the radiuses freehand on the lathe.
So a lot of scribbling on cereal packet cardboard, head scratching to get the parts laid out as close as I could and away I went.





I was setting it up to drive both outside rollers with chain but after rolling this ring so easily I will stay with the top roller drive only.

Starting to roll my first ring. I used the small magnetic spirit level on the bench in the background to keep the ring upright and from spiralling while rolling it. It took 6 passes to achieve this final ring. I cut the straight ends off the pipe as I rolled it so it would ease through the frame better as it tightened up.

This is a 26" bike wheel (landyacht wheel) inside the finished ring.

This 25nb galv pipe ring, will be used as the hand wheel to power the top roller.

Today I started making the dies to do the reverse roll so the cross section of the rim will look hopefully like this.


Here are some links to the better sites I have found.
If you have any that would be of assistance to us please chime in and share.
madmodder.net/index.php/topic,3504.0.html

aaronsbigbikeblog.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html

pennyfarthinginbruges.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/penny-farthing-backbone.html

Finally some spoke info.
www.goldenoldy.org/wire.htm

I'll keep you all posted on my progress.
Chook

ha ha!!!!! lil stig has been practicing those tricks and has 4 of them down pat.
I can only do two
But on the skate park Im finally getting some air in the half bowl. now that is fn scary fun.
my part of this mad scheme seems to be creating the spokes.
The biggest problem seems to that regular bike spokes are to thin and Motorcycle spokes are to thick.
the right size is 12 gauge. i thought it would be easy after I realized I had 500m of 12 gauge HT wire in my shed, but the bike shop die would only do 14/15 guage.
for the last month ive been trolling the web trying to find a jig AND matching die but the 3 makes all seem to have some reason to only have one or the other for thier machines.
I am making progress though.
meanwhile back in the franken cave Ive managed to get the gooseneck welded and all the gussets in( made from a dead crank)
also the important foot peg base is on and braced


I must say I really have missed bronze welding. i just love it. last week i upgraded from D size to E size bottles. and te new bottles just feel like they belong in the shed.
YesI should be off building a new yacht of some kind , But I put that off till Barry ,Vic or Andy give me a good flogging

aus230 said..

I really enjoy bronze welding to kinda fun. Problem is I can only find those flux coated rods now. I like the ones that are dipped into a flux pot.

I will get the name and number of my packet tommorrow Vic. I bought a kilo of rods,and their half used up already. the last kilo i bought lasted 18 years!!!!!

Gotta love it Paul!
Last time I brazedsomething at home was class 5 for Lytham '87
I'm without workshop for a while now, trying not to get antsy for new projects
Just have to watch you guys for a bit.........

Nice looking welds...!

interesting history

the beast is on the road today.
21 gears working smooooooth as silk. snagged a big fat soft seat from targettt for $3.86. shes a cruiser with a view


herse the derailleur set up, basically a flipped normal setup. this has shimano 7 speed back end and a suntour 2 speed from an indi 500 retuned to a 3 speed on the top

back end has 750ft/lb shocky that takes the bumps out of the rear ride,and a lovely kick stand so you dont need to find a large tree to lean it against

How was your camping trip on the weekend eh chook. With that wind ya should 'ave gone sailin!
Matt dobbed ya in

The "Road Worrier" was a complete success!!!!!!!!!
after getting it running on saturday,lil stig and I entered a 27km road race from broad arrow to ora banda.
they did say there was 7kms of dirt at the end but i wasnt prepared for how dangerous a penjyfakething could be on corregations. lil stig was a complete champion. her first long ride , on a regular bike and she almost beat 2 regular riders!!!!. we did the trip in 1hr30mins compared to the carbon bikes at 40-45mins.
the bike proved one thing , thata $3.86 target seatwill give you $3.

of comfort before reverting to a shear pain machine

Well I am impressed!,,,,,, congrats to lil stig! great job...putting up with your dad for the long ride!

as long as they do what i want to do
yesterday i started on a 24' lighter ,better geared roadbike that lil stig can perform on. the bike shop was rather impressed that she rode her tip bike all that way ,and are helping with the design proccess.
Lyndon has supplied some maxxis bullet proof ex postie bike tyres.
I laced a 24" rim to a shimano racing cassete hub(apparenetly it cant be done) and that was trued today. ,
the start of the bike is now a rear wheel that would cost $150 built from scraps for $15
the frame is coming from a 24" and some old raleigh 27's,a bennett and some newish indexed shifters.
i reckon I'll get down to 12kg's
also an excuse to buy some epoxy and carbon

Mate , im starting to worship that machine

Chook2 said..

Well a wild weather day, so good to stay tucked up in the shed.
The tube arrived on Thursday, so back to this project.

I got the 415mm rear wheel, rim rolled in 25.4mm x 1.6mm ERW tube and welded up.



I removed an outside die to give me more room to work.
I then fitted a small roller underneath (that fits up into the drive die) that pushes the tyre radius onto the outside of the rim. I ran the rim round 6 times increasing the pressure each lap to form the profile of the rim.



It worked a treat and the rim ended up only 1 mm out of round and this was at the join. Where it was welded together.



Now knowing that the system will work, I rolled up the other rims.

My main wheel will be 48", 1220mm, in height and Paul want's one as well. So to standardise on the spokes, I've gone for the same size too. We just have to sort out a standard size drive hub dimension, and width.
I also have rolled two 36", 915mm wheels. (as I can get 2 out of the 6100mm length of 25.4mm x 1.6mm ERW tube.)



I'm going to weld one 36" rim together then profile it for the solid 1", 25mm tyre. I'll profile the second then join it to see if one, is any better than the other.

and... yes the purple paint, was 2 of my left over spray packs. So the rest of the roller will get painted all different colours, when I finish modifying it.

Chook do you line the ERW weld to the outside of the initial roll and therefore to the inside of the finished rim

Dam its a long way down

Next they will be trying to put sails on them