getting some perspective

Its amazing how you can get so focused on the details of a job sometimes that you forget to stand back and see if the bigger picture is still as you planned in your initial vision.
Hugh came over today, and the sun came out (it always does where-ever Hugh goes) and so it seemed like a good excuse to get the Trike out of my pokey garage so that i could get better all round view of progress so far.
We shuffled the engine and front end back and forth by a half inch here and a mill or two there. We sat in the seat and jacked that up and down. We imagined what different handle bars would feel like.... and all in all, it felt good - I think im still on the right track.
One design objective is to ensure that I keep the length of the vehicle short enough to be in beautiful proportion (many trikes appear to be too long to me) - but to achieve this the headstock has to come in close to the engine block meaning that the radiator would have to sit outside (in front) of the two front frame tubes (i'd ideally fit the rad in between them to keep things tidy). As we jiggled the bits back and forth, I used the word "compromise"! Hugh was quick to pick me up on it.... but that now leaves me with some head scratching and fine details to work out if im going to keep it short AND fit the rad in the frame as i want.
The other point that raised its head as we stood around the front end was; just how much of an angle do the forks have to rotate through while turning (it has an impact on where i weld the frame to the headstock) - so Hugh is going to have a measure of the rotation on his own bikes
There is heaps of design work to do still, but im confident and very happy that i am going in the right direction

Shafted

Excellent - I now have all the components I need to get on with building my frame. Up until now i havent been able to bolt down the engine to my jig because i didn't have an exact propshaft length... but now i do.
Dave Mac Propshafts (www.davemacprops.com) in Coventry took a bit of finding on the internet - eventually through a special car build forum - But im glad i did find him as they turned out to be jolly nice chaps with a quick and professional turn around.
OK so it cost me £45 - money i can barely afford on this project now, and some people have suggested i should have done the job myself - but at least now i know i have a sound and balanced propshaft.
There were alternative methods to this -
1) a direct coupling as the rear axle is rigid - I fancy doing this one day - bolting the rear axle directly to the gearbox, No propshaft at all!
2) a new yoke and shaft set up - which apparently would have been a better performance arrangement (I suspect performance isn't going to be an issue on this trike.... for one reason or other).
However at the end of the day shortening my own propshaft was the cheapest option... and so i went with that.
What you see here is the absolute shortest that you can modify a standard reliant propshaft to. 260mm (inside that short bit of welded tube, the 2 UJ castings are actually touching each other)

fish mouths

Now that I've got all that lovely tube lying on the floor of my garage, I couldn't resist seeing just how difficult it would be to cut my welding joint fish mouths.
Cautiously i cut off an 8" section (that's about £2.30! A whole pints worth!) and despite my best calculations and paper templates, got the first one completely wrong - i cut to a depth of half the diameter - which in theory would be correct if i was making it out of tube as thin as paper. My second attempt (as seen in photo) accounted for the wall thickness AND a weld bead - which means that the fish mouth isnt so deep (and requires far less filing) - ie its the external surfaces that I need to make flush, not the internal ones.
I reckon that the work of cutting and shaping the joints wont be too hard. The challenge is going to be protracting the profile to cut to; Theres a distinct lack of edges to reference to (and this practice one was a simple right angle!).
I suspect its going to be a job of tailor-making each joint with loving little file-and-fit matchups. One step at a time..... one step at a time.

Tube arrives

What do you think £222 of raw trike frame tube looks like?
Sadly its not as much as you might expect
BUT the smell is fabulous :-)
And the excitement of finally having all the ingredients now to create this masterpiece is worth every penny:-)
I hope i didn't bore the delivery drivers with the story of my project. As you can see they seemed interested enough to be considered an instrumental part of this exciting journey.
I really am feeling very happy about all this at the moment :-)

Readers rides

You know things are hotting up when you can get your wife to show a degree of interest.... well, to tell the truth I had to drag her in there... shes still not very interested really. However, she does leave me alone to get on with my thing, so I cant really complain.
I wonder if she'll be interested in doing the modeling for the BSH shoot? :-/

Pipe bender arrives

Look at the size of this monster! It weighs a ton. No wonder it cost £23 to deliver.
It doesn't have a die to exactly suit my pipe size. There is an 1-1/2" and a 2" dia die, but not a 1-3/4" (44mm - my pipe size)
So does this matter? should i line the 2" die with a 3mm thick copper liner?
Im not sure how easy it is going to be to bend tight bends or compound curves..... maybe not for no reason do trike builders use 2"x2" angle iron

Thank you

I'd just like to officially record my Thanks to TVOR and Hughie for encouraging me to make my own axle clamps.
I didn't want to do it. I'd have been happy to pay someone to make them for me. But I have made them myself and Ive loved every moment and feel rather proud of my work.
I have to say though, that its cost me considerably more to make them myself rather than pay an engineering shop to make them for me - my files, new scribe, square and layout blue came to more than a couple of machined lumps of steel - however, now i can make axle clamps for ever more. if anyone needs a pair making, I'm the man - £60 a pair.
So Thanks for the encouragement - I so nearly missed out on a lot of fun and a little bit of self-fulfillment :-D

In the end you have to decide

Well ive made the decision and the commitment.... Ive ordered my frame tubing. it is more expensive than i'd hoped (i forgot all about the VAT - and i opted to have it delivered) And I've gone for the normalized condition (which is more expensive) - I spoke with a steel stockist who suggested this would be best for bending and welding.

BS 3602 CFS 360 NBK

44.45mm x 3.25mm

3 lens @ 6mt middled

18mt @ £9.39 = 169.02

Carriage 20.00

Vat 33.08

Total 222.10

I think i only need about 12 meters of tubing, but 1) i can only buy in stock lengths of 6 meters, and 2) i have allowed some extra material for practice and cockups. So I guess in theory the ACTUAL cost of material consumed on the trike will be about £150 - that might have to be discussed in the fine detail of the finished project. But as it stands now, it could be argued that i only have £99 left to finish the project!
For those who are interested, I'm buying my tube from the very helpful Zina at Hub Le Bas in Bilston
So i think ive pretty well got all in order now to get on with making this thing...
1. 12 tonne hydraulic pipe bender off ebay for £65
2. brand new scriber and can of layout blue (do you know how difficult that stuff is to find?)
3. Welder sourced (but im not going to buy it until i return from holiday)
4. Redundancy just around the corner

To BK or NBK? - that is the question

Im about to buy my frame tube. Ive worked out the diameter i want and the length. Ive found a supplier of CDS tube (now called CFS and often called DOM by the Americans) - but theyve thrown an option into the can of worms. Do I want it BK (as drawn - work hardened) or NBK (normalised - back to its cast condition which is a bit softer). NBK is by the way the spec for hydraulic pipe.
Well, what do I want? does it effect 1) bendability, 2) weldability, 3) vehicle strength and durability?

Wikipedia says......
"Normalizing: Carbon steel is heated to approximately 55 °C above Ac₃ or Ac_m for 1 hour; this assures the steel completely transforms to austenite. The steel is then air cooled, which is a cooling rate of approximately 38 °C (100 °F) per minute. This results in a fine pearlitic structure, and a more uniform structure. Normalized steel has a higher strength than annealed steel; it has a relatively high strength and ductility"

Already referenced elsewhere in this blog; Miller Welds ( http://www.millerwelds.com/education/articles/articles70.html ) says.....
"Drawn-over mandrel tubing is manufactured to ASTM Specification A513 Type 5, and frame fabricators often chose SAE Steel Grades 1018 and 1020. These have a yield strength of 70 ksi or 483 N/mm2"

Now i did metallurgy as part of my first degree, but i suspect i was sitting at the back designing jazz club ties with Hughie rather than listening to the lecture that talked about "yield strength" - and now my head is in a spin

Its amazing how many manfacturers of motorbikes claim that their machines are made of the "highest grade steel" - but none of them can quote what that actually is - buyer beware!

Budget is getting tighter

last count = £679
Plus £18 for the box section metal for axle clamps...
= Current total; £697
that leaves me with just over 300 quid and i think my frame tube is going to consume half of that.
So what else am i going to need to spend money on?
- handle bars (im sure the ones ive got wont do)
- throttle twist-grip and cables
- brake pipes
- electrics
- battery
- rear lights
- prop shaft modifications
- and probably loads of other things i havent thought about
And in addition to all that, ill bet just the nuts and bolts that i will need to buy will be 50 quid!

THIS is living

I cant tell you how much i enjoyed my 4 hours in the garage today. Was it only 4 hours? it flew by... and yet it felt like all day.
Earlier in the week i bought myself a few feet of 50x50x3 and 50x100x3 box section (from my favourite steel stockist - FW Warden - www.fhwarden.co.uk they are great for offcuts) for my rear axle to frame clamp. It cost me £18 (a good 80 quid cheaper than the estimate for getting some clamps engineered for me)
My files also arrived during the week (i havent told the wife yet that they cost more than twice as much as the metal that im going to use them on! - however they should last me a long time beyond this project and anyway that cost comes out of another budget... somewhere)
And so today I made the time to get into the garage with some fresh metal (I get quite excited about having fresh metal rather than something hacked off some bit of scrap) and some sharp tools.
I sweated like a pig as i sawed and filed (I'm glad i didnt go for the 5mm) and the music was loud - it felt fantastic
So as you can see from the picture I have got one clamp block pretty well made up (i havent put the cut outs for the frame tubes in yet as im waiting for the material first) - the pipes in the picture are heating pipe insulation laggings
Im not sure yet about the full height of these blocks - i think im happy with the depth below the axle, but will reduce the height above it. I think this is going to create a very strong frame - and im loving it in this big tube size.