homemade FS frame



U

Unisk8r

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OK, I was getting tired of my heavy 20" Torker LX for
freestyle, so I took an aluminum mountain bike crown,
sawed it apart and milled down the width, found a 1 1/8"
aluminum steerer tube, and sawed apart an old chrome
unistar frame for the legs (to keep the bearing holders,
which I wasn't about to make from scratch...yet). Then I
had a friend heliarc the crown halves and seat tube
together, and I bolted in and glued the steel legs. Voila!
A new, lightweight, custom freestyle frame! I was also
able to cut off a standard 7/8" seatpost quite a bit,
saving even more weight. I used the same seatpost clamp
from the Torker. $5. for the crown and tube at my local
recycled bike shop, and $20. for the chrome donor frame.
My and my welder friend's time, though priceless, shall
not count due to the fun of it.

Here are a couple pics of my handiwork:

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Here's from the back:

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| Attachment filename: fs1.backupper.jpg |
|Download attachment:
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looks awesome! its probably just the picture playing tricks
on my mind, but how close is the frame to touching the
wheel? anyways, thats one

-grant

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Sweet! You're having too much fun making and modifying
your own toys.

We need a picture showing the whole cycle in all of
its glory.

Have you seen the 'Pichlerrad'
(http://www.pichlerrad.de/de01.htm) unicycles? He makes a
model called the 'Solo'
(http://www.pichlerrad.de/solo_1.htm) that has a similar
style of crown. I think the Solo is a cool design.

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Wow, that's pretty sweet! So how much weight did you save?
Can you post a pic of the bearing holders?

Daniel

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daino149 - How's it going, Texas?

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That's beautiful, and it looks like it would be just the
right size and shape for freestyle. Great work!

Andrew

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john_childs wrote:
> * Have you seen the 'Pichlerrad'
> (http://www.pichlerrad.de/de01.htm) unicycles? *

Thanks for that link, John. I now know that my Picherrad is
a "Semipro" model. I got the uni second hand and knew
nothing about it except that it was a Picherrad and that its
previous owner bought it in Germany. Its cool to find out
stuff about your unis!

Check out the walking machine on the "Spezials" page -
wery nice!

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See some photos of the first 'NZ MUni Weekend'
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It looks very nice. And it appears the crown can be
separated from the fork legs, like a Pichlerrad? This means
you have a *modular* frame. You can swap out wheels and fork
legs to fit different sized wheels. That's one of the cool
things about the Pichler.

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There is indeed 1/8" clearance between the tire and the
bottom of the crown. However, on this one the legs are
epoxied and clamped into the crown. I actually didn't
consider modularity of the legs for a different size wheel;
rather, I only wanted to make the crown as small as possible
for the hookworm tire.

The bearing holders are just standard Torker/Sun type. I
suppose if anyone bothered to machine some aluminum ones for
a standard 40mm bearing, with a round plug at the top of the
bearing holder to fit into a 7/8" or 1" tube, we could
venture into carbon fiber tubes...

This one was fairly easy, to get parts from the used bike
shop, and I didn't use a jig for assembly, just eyeballed
it! It rides very true.

The crown/seatube/shorter seatpost combo probably saved at
least a full pound over the Torker frame.

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unisk8r wrote:
> *There is indeed 1/8" clearance between the tire and the
> bottom of the crown. However, on this one the legs are
> epoxied and clamped into the crown. I actually didn't
> consider modularity of the legs for a different size
> wheel; rather, I only wanted to make the crown as small as
> possible for the hookworm tire. *

The Pichlerrad Solo has lollipop style bearing holders
rather than the main cap style. To take the unicycle apart
to change the tire you have to remove the crown from the
fork legs.

The Pichlerrad Solo is an interesting design. But the design
does have it's faults. It can be a bit tricky getting the
legs all square and lined up when putting it back together.
It's still a cool design and every time I see one I go
"Ohhhh, I want one".

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