Tall bikes/ chopper bike questions

[mike]

Hi anyone here every build a tall bike or chopper bike, if so do you have any tips on construction , finding parts ,welding etc.?
Thanks

 

[Euchrid]

I have a Tall Bike, and can answer almost any questions you have on building one. What do you need to know ?

 

[mike]

Euchrid wrote:

I have a Tall Bike, and can answer almost any questions you have on building one. What do you need to know ?

cool well first off do you have any tips you could give me on finding parts to use, also did you have to weld on you bike i assume you did ifso what type of welder did you use.
and ive never fully taken a bike apartand put one back together so any general tips on that would be appreciated.(sorry if i did'nt elaborate enough on the questions ).

 

[Matt Derrick]

id like to hear about this too

 

[Mady]

Alright A lot of people cant get a hold of welders, if you have a drill you can bolt it, though I have never done that for myself. For a welder any variety should work, just make sure BOTH BIKES ARE METAL!~ If you have a college campus nearby, go to the 3d design section and ask if you can borrow theirs(considering you dont have any friends who have one) Getting the matierals is the hardest part. DO NOT remove the breaks and shifter and all that fun stuff, they are SO easy to reatach and i dont get why everyone feels like they need to take them off.

WHat you need: 2 healthy bikes, heavier on the bottom.
1 welder or soddering tool(though i dont recomend soddering, i have a bike that it worked ok on)
1 peice of steel pipe for the front, measure the pipe to fit into the handle bar hole of the bottom bike.

Cuts: For the bottom bike youll need to remove the handle bars, and the seat. The steel pip will go where the handle bars were, and the second bike will be places on the back seat.

For the top bike youll need to sand down the area under the seat, and remove both wheels obviously. Make sure that the top bike is evenly aligned.

Sanding: Sand ALL of the areas where you will be welding, it makes the weld hold tighter since it wont have to burn through paint(which can also be toxic.)

After that weld the pipe onto the front taking car to not weld it so the the front wont be able to turn, and make sure you securly weld the back bottom onto the back seat.

If you need any tips on how to weld ask me, its sort of a skill. After you attach the 2 bikes together reconnect all your gizmos and have fun! Tell me if you have any questions.

 

[Mady]

Sorry about the delayed response i had to make a new account.

 

[mike]

Madison Grainer wrote:

Sorry about the delayed response i had to make a new account.

Thanks duder I can weld fine but the gathering of materials and putting the thing together is what im not exaclty clear on, im gonna try to make kinda a tall/chopper combination i just need to find parts. Thanks for the tips!

 

[Mady]

No problem if you run into any issues tell me. Be careful when your welding! If you mess up welding the pipe in it gets this bizarre stiffness which often leads to it breaking.

 

[meathook]

i want, so dearly, for this thread to be successfully resurrected.
unfortunately i have nothing much to contribute as i just rode a tall bike for my first time, and don't know shit about choppers, however hopefully i will be learning soon.
maybe over the next few days i can get some pics of local sweet bikes and post those?
anyway, you guys, I DEMAND POSTINGS IN THIS THREAD

 

[ByronMc]

I love what's going on in the bicycle world,people are doing everything ! At the moment,am riding a road bike,but have ridden everything ! Look me up on fb,and go thru my friends list,see what others are doing out in this beautiful bicycle world of ours !

 

[freeranger]

well, as far as welding goes you can get a cheap tiny welding set from home depot/ lowe's for a hundred bucks here. the issue is that's nowhere near enough fuel to get you through a job like this. getting a real welding set and then ordering the oxy/acy tanks including deposits will run you upwards of a 1000$ depending on where you're at.

only other option is to find some way to make each part screw or bolt together.

 

[ByronMc]

There are welders everywhere,willing to help,sure,ya gotta pay for the supplies, barter for the labor. Bolting would take a lot of work,even needing to weld fittings !............Could look on craigslist,for a mig,pay around 3 or 4 for a Millermatic !

 

[meathook]

luckily i can probably weasel my way into some limited access to friends-of-friends' awesome workshops, and there's always the grease pit, which is a totally awesome non-profit educational bike-shop collective thing. i've been hanging out with some people who are REALLY into freak bikes and it's rubbing off on me, nothing gets one inspired more than being around knowledgeable people who are very excited about what they're doing.

 

[Wild Ty Laserbeam]

It is possible to build a tallbike without welding I built this one wit absolutely no power tools. It is not drilled or anything. Just U-bolts and hose clamps.
http://bikething.blogspot.com/2010/09/bolt-together-tallbike.html It's not sturdy, but it does actually ride. It's been on many pizza missions. That's my old blog. Flip through it, it's a good way to get inspired. Look at your friend's freak bikes and ones on the internet to inspiration, but mainly start looking for any bike parts you can find. Start dumpstering at bike shops. Get drunk and take bikes apart. Parts fit together in way's you wouldn't think. Look at other things and consider if they could be bike parts. The handle bars on the bike in my profile picture is part of the frame from a city garbage can.

This guy has cool designs too. http://omahgarsh.blogspot.com/2009/10/surf-woody-project-part.html All bolt-together. He'll really get you thinking about how you can mis-use re-use all kinds of parts.

Get creative. Tall bikes are super awesome but there are infinite possibilities if you just want a crazy bike.

 

[ByronMc]

I would not ride it

 

[Benny]

I built a tall bike a few years ago. It was fun to build it and it rode great but it was scary and dangerous to ride. Here's the link.

 

[Rolling Blackouts]

I've built a few Talls and freakbikes so far off my Miller "Buzzbox" MIG. It doesn't produce the cleanest welds, but it gets the job done. There's a few decent tutorials on instructables.com which should answer most questions. I always try to find older, heavier, US Steel frames of similar size. I recommend using non-galvanized gas conduit for the steer columns. Measure Twice - Cut Once.

 

[Deleted member 20]

I would not ride it

Exaxtly my thoughts ByronMc.

I would want to mitigate the risks. There are inexpensive day long frame building classes for peeps that want to learn about jigs, welding etc for regular road/mtb bike frames using dif metals. Stick with steel. For all of you non welders, alloys & steel dont mix. So u cant grab a cheap wallmart bike out of the trash made of aluminum & a xl framed 27" touring bike from the 80s & expect to weld them together. Welding tubing can be unforgiving due to the thickness of the wall & what welding method you use. Just practice.

Anything worth doing is worth doing right. Would you want to ride some insanely tall bike held together with clamps & bolts.

 

[yoder]

I call it the "penny fakething"

The hardest thing about this bike was making a coupler to connect the 2 fork tubes together and figuring out the center of balance.

 

[yoder]

With apes