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Home-made racks?

Old 12-03-07, 08:23 AM
  #26  
jonathan180iq
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Originally Posted by MMACH 5
When you factor in the time (i.e. time is money), this might be true. However, I spent $6 on aluminum angles and $3 on pull-rivots. Everything else came out of the LBS dumpster.

Having said that, even if it did cost more, it's just too much fun building stuff for your bike from scratch. That alone makes it worth more than a store-bought anything.

Plus, you have an intricate and personal knowledge of whatever it is that you just built. It's also very rewarding knowing that have made a useful item with your own two hands.
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Old 12-03-07, 08:33 AM
  #27  
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CharlesC i like that rack. looks good on that bike.
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Old 03-22-19, 07:34 PM
  #28  
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Old thread, but a good topic
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Old 04-28-19, 07:02 AM
  #29  
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This is my 'wood' version on my Schwinn.I used leftover wood from another project and used 3 coats of Deft Exterior Polyurethane to protect it.Been on the bike for 600 mi so far with no signs of wear.

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Old 04-28-19, 07:10 AM
  #30  
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And another semi-home made rack

The racks that attach to just the seat post I never have luck with, they tend to 'swing' on the post no matter how tight. This is a modification I did to put an end to that, plus puts less stress on the seat post and can carry more weight. So, lets call it semi-home made.

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Old 07-05-19, 12:26 AM
  #31  
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During the 1970's, there was a very popular, "modern" for that time Child Carrier that was made by Troxel, it was known specifcally as THE ORIGINAL HIGH BACK CHILD CARRIER by Troxel.
It had a one piece molded heavy duty cream-colored plastic baby seat that bolted directly with four bolts to an expertly engineered strong steel frame that attached to the frame on both sides of the rear wheel via a superb bolted clamp arrangement. The front of this expertly engineered strong steel Child Carrier's frame attached to the SEATPOST Clamp bolt. There was a heavy steel flat bracket with several holes to allow mounting to an almost infinite number of sixties, seventies, and early eighties era bicycles. THE STRENGTH OF THIS "The Original High Back Child Carrier" by troxel, WAS OVERBUILT SUCH THAT IT CAN BEAR A WEIGHTLOAD THAT EVEN THE FATTEST CHILD OF TODAY (... yea, the largest fat kids of the 1970's wouldn't be considered fat by todays' ridiculous out of shape, too politically correct standards, where people think being morbidly obese is okay...)
Yes, these old "Original High Back Child Carrier" by Troxel are super strong at least in terms of weight load-bearing BUT AS YOU MIGHT EXPECT, THESE WITH JUST A one inch nylon strap Lap belt, ARE NOT the safest..... not real "Safe" by the standards of today for transporting children on the rear of an adult's bike because of only having just the one inch nylon strap Lap belt.
Well, I'm just stating this in terms that legal counsel might say if you were to "reproduce" such a reproduction vintage child carrier today.
For the same exact reasons that people no longer use old CAR SEAT-Baby Carriers from that era, nobody really uses old child carrier bike seat set-ups for child use because NEWER ARRANGEMENTS better secure and protect the Child much better than what might have been okay in 1975.
Anyway without getting into the pros and cons of vintage vs new child carriers for bikes, I simply want to point out that these ancient vintage "ORIGINAL HIGH BACK CHILD CARRIER" by Troxel, do make excellent starting basis for a superb home-made rear rack.
You should be able to find these easily if you look around for about a month.
They should be inexpensive, or possibly free if you ask enough people who may still have one in their garage or basement.
Often you'll find them on old seventies era SCHWINN lightweights like the COLLEGIATE and SUBURBAN and on similar bikes like the Columbia Tourist V 5 speed, and Raleigh Sprite 5 speed and ROSS Eurotour 5 speed, and similar era bikes that were adult, NorthRoad, upright handlebar bikes with fenders, typically with five speed set-ups............... sometimes these are found on Tourist style "upright" North-Road bars equipped Schwinn Super Sport 10 speeds and the like but often these child carriers were seen most often attached to 5 speed and 3 speed bikes that "mama" would ride with her kids back in the day.
So these are likely attached to bikes that you would not be normally attracted to, but these Troxel child carriers from the Seventies can lend themselves to becoming a great basis for a superb homemade rear rack. You need not be MacGyver to see the possibilities if you just look closely at the design of these ancient Troxel high back Child Carriers. I doubt that you could mimic the strong frame arrangement on your own. You certainly can't do it at the low or no cost that these ancient Troxel carriers can be obtained. I suggest you look for one to build the "ultimate homemade rear carrier rack thing"
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Old 07-05-19, 01:46 AM
  #32  
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See the photo that (number1bike) posted on 4-28-19 where he makes a very inexpensive seat post style rack much more stable by using lumbar(wood) for legs.

May I suggest that one probably can do the exact same thing except use two old golf club shafts.
Specifically, I would recommend those ancient ALUMINUM SHAFT golf clubs that were very popular on pro-line quality clubs during the years 1967-1972 or so.
Why these old ALUMINUM shafts? Well, they don't rust and they are lighter than the TrueTemper steel shafts as seen in golf clubs from 1942 to 2015. You can find these among the old clubs barrel at your local GOODWILL or SALVATION ARMY thrift store for typically fifty cents to a dollar per club, definitely for less than two dollars per club.
HOW?: Cut the shaft to length that you need. JB WELD Epoxy some Eyebolts at each end of each golf club shaft. YOU WILL NEED TWO GOLF CLUB SHAFTS for the two attaching arms. You can get some hickory, oak, or maple branches/limbs from your backyard to use for Dowels to taper and ram into the end of each end of your "CUT" golf club shaft, if you wish to use an EYEBOLT that woodscrews into wood, etc......... I would strongly urge you to use epoxy or JB Weld to glue the wood plug into each end of the shaft, and when you screw the screw variety eyebolt into the wood plug...
Now obviously IF YOU GET SOME SORT OF EYEBOLT which has a diameter that very closely matches the DIAMETER of the end section of where you CUT the golf club shaft, then you can just Load it up with EPOXY or JB WELD and masking tape saturated in epoxy to make it a tighter press fit for the EYEBOLT. Do that and let it set-up and cure for 48 hours. If you get Eyebolts that have the diameter(s) for each ends of the cut-up golf shafts, you can easily do it with this EPOXY or JB WELD masking tape to build up and tight press fit... heavily saturated in epoxy or JB Weld..
You should be able to make some very nice looking, yet very lightweight and strong, "LEGS" to stabilize these "elcheapo LOW COST seatpost Carrier racks" in the same manner that (number1bike) has done in his example with wood scraps.
YOU CAN USE EITHER OLD ALUMINUM shafts, OLD STEEL SHAFTS, or GRAPHITE SHAFTS. I will say this that it is important to choose shafts that appear nice and of the same variety. It should not be difficult to find two that are matching as Pro/Top of the line golf clubs sets of irons typically were sold as 2-PW sets from the 1950's through the mid 1990's, .....so nine clubs............... IN A STANDARD LENGTH set the two iron usually was 38 1/2" in length prior to about 1970 and typically 38.75" to 39" depending on Manufacturer from 1970 to about 1995. Typically each iron club is about 1/2 inch shorter in length than the next lowest numbered iron................thus the 3 iron is about a half inch shorter in length than the 2 iron, and the 4 iron is about a 1/2 inch shorter than the 3 iron and so on. The PW (pitching wedge) will be the shortest club.......... Even the PW or sand wedge shaft or putter shaft will be long enough at around 35 inches or so.
Oh, one thing to mention is that some pro-line clubs of the early to late seventies featured STEPLESS shafts, rather than traditional step down shafts. You guessed it most have a step pattern rather than stepless taper.................The reason is that the ancient True Temper Dynamic which dated to the early 1940's saw a resurgeance in popularity among Tour Pros in the late seventies.(tour pros wanted shafts that they could work the ball flight with, rather than something that made the ball flight better(straighter/higher) for average people.
Anyway you might find stepless shafts in some old clubs, and if you look carefully the step pattern will differ among say True Temper Dynamic, True Temper Pro-Fit, and True Temper Rocket and the rebadged manufacturer's names for these shafts. This is way too much information about old golf shafts but just in case you were wondering when you look at hundreds of old clubs in the $1 clubs section at Salvation Army or Goodwill.
MacGyver was at a bike race in 1987 and I saw his Peugeot bike had this type of thing on it made with old golf club shafts!
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Old 07-05-19, 03:20 PM
  #33  
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Here is important information on "How To Use OLD GOLF CLUB SHAFTS cut down to size" as LEGS for modifying the EL-CHEAPO SEAT POST MOUNT REAR RACKS (as seen in the example of "number1bike" ).

One thing to know if you aren't familiar with golf clubs is that the AREA OF THE GOLF SHAFT where you see the "Grip".................YOU CAN USE A RAZOR BLADE KNIFE or BOX CUTTER, etc To CUT AND PEEL THE RUBBER GOLF GRIP, (or cut and unwrap the Leather Grip, if it has Leather rather than rubber grip)................ESSENTIALLY YOU CUT THE GRIP OFF, ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE DOUBLE SIZED ADHESIVE MASKING TAPE (golf grip tape that when originally installed by the grip installer gets Wetted With LIGHTER FLUID ....e.g. RONSON lighter fluid-NAPTHA, or Gasoline, or Charcoal Lighter Fluid............................you see the golf grips get installed at the factory with a double sided masking tape known as golf club grip tape.............it looks very much like a simple roll of approx. 5/8" or 15mm wide masking tape, EXCEPT that there is adhesive on both sides instead of just one. .....the golf grip tape roll has a "Peel OFF" thin paper that covers the outer adhesive portion.................................They apply the "golf grip tape" just as you would any masking tape..................for golf club assembly-installing the grip.......they would wrap the "golf grip tape" around the shaft in Christmas Candy Cane fashion with slight gap between the spiraling single wrap that exposes some shaft chrome etc...................this is done to simplify the UNWRAPPING OF THE "Peel-Off" outer paper covering, that exposes the adhesive portion...............................THEN THEY SQUIRT LIGHTER FLUID or GASOLINE (golf grip solvent = Ronson lighter fluid) ON TO THE GRIP TAPE WRAPPED SHAFT.................Enough to wet, and make liquid the adhesive on the tape......................they then squirt some lighter fluid into the rubber golf grip while keeping a finger covering the tiny hole at the rear of the grip...................they swish the little amount of lighter fluid around, all inside the rubber grip, for just maybe three seconds or five seconds and then while the fluid is still inside the grip........proceeding to install said golf grip on the golf shaft with the wetted grip tape........
THEY HAVE ABOUT 45 seconds to INSTALL THE GRIP FROM THE FIRST MOMENT THAT THE GRIP TAPE IS WETTED or activated...............use more lighter fluid and you may have up to 25 additional seconds of time....................You see the lighter fluid makes the grip slide on very easy over the tape BUT IT SOON BECOMES LESS LIKE MELTED BUTTER and MORE LIKE CONTACT CEMENT if you dilly dally and wait too long to get it on.
....................OKAY, the point of this is to explain how in the heck do I clean the remaining grip tape and gook residue away, once I have cut the grip off the old shaft using my boxcutter. ***** LIGHTER FLUID (ronson.. Naptha..etc) or CHARCOAL LIGHTER FLUID , OR GASOLINE...........*******ONLY DO THIS OUTSIDE, AWAY FROM PETS AND CHILDREN, I suggest using a disposable aluminum baking pan, or other tv dinner tray etc to catch the FLUID SO IT DOES NOT GO INTO THE GROUND etc............................Wetting the old remaining adhesive residue/grip tape with lighter fluid or gasoline will easily remove it such that you get back to perfectly clean, shiny chrome golf shaft where the golf grip once was. It should take less than a minute to remove the remaining residue/grip tape after cutting the old grip off with a razor blade knife/box cutter.......................................Not using Lighter Fluid, etc for this removing of final residue/grip tape and you might be scraping the shaft with a razor blade for as much as forty-five minutes to get it clean.
I hope that information is useful...............you also know how to install golf grips too..................oh, the golf grip tape method can be used to permanently affix HANDLE BAR grips (think the type found on forties, fifties, sixties, seventies.....etc) on North Road style/cruiser handlebars..................the handlebar grip will not slide around once the grip tape adhesive has dried..............................you do a small candy cane type of wrap......peel the top paper layer away.....liberally wet the tape, and squirt some into the handle bar grip and swish it for a few seconds...............SLIDE IT ON..........align it the way you want it.......Let it dry for for a day before using................cut off any exposed grip tape that extends beyond the Grip................and it will appear perfect........................ you will to likely cut the handlebar grips off because the grip tape method affixes them at least as strong as using contact cement.....................the hairspray method is what you want IF you ever want to remove them without cutting them off, or resorting to injecting lighter fluid under the grip.....

Earlier I mentioned old aluminum shafts, well I don't think the super-tiny weight difference on say an approx. 40cm (16 inch) section of any old golf club shaft is gonna make any difference, as whatever eyebolts etc will be your heaviest weight contributor............. Chromed Steel Golf shafts rust on the inside of the shaft where climate is high humidity, or clubs exposed to moisture etc and the butt end of the grip is torn or missing.............there is no coating on the inside of the shaft, but still even for chromed steel True Temper golf shafts as old as from the early 1940's, IF THE EXTERIOR CHROME APPEARS IN GOOD CONDITION, THE SHAFT IS STILL STRONG ENOUGH TO SWING. HIT ON THE DRIVING RANGE, OR PLAY..... and will hold up to any reasonable load that you give the approx 16 inch section that you may be using for LEGS of a rear bicycle carry rack.
Golf shafts did come in different flexes................(R) or Med for REGULAR shafts .................Regular shafts of the fourties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and eighties ARE STIFFER in flex than Today's Stiff Shaft Flex clubs. ...............(S) stiff shaft........(X) extra stiff (rare some 1960's - early 1980's PGA Tour Pros did use them)...........................There are the (L) for Whippy shafts or Ladies flex shafts... PRO-LINE GRADE-TOP OF THE LINE stuff of yesterday, e.g. WILSON Staff Dynapower irons, HaigUltra irons, Wilson X-31 irons, PowerBilt Citation irons, MacGregor Tourney irons, Titleist Tour Model irons, Hogan Apex irons, the list would go on too long................ BUT NONE OF THESE TOP OF THE LINE irons came WITH ANYTHING LESS THAN TOP GRADE (R) regular flex or (S) stiff flex SHAFTS................you could special order a Whippy LADIES/old person Flex or for additional cost a custom (X) extra stiff flex set........................Often folks would get a custom (S) flex set that had been "tipped" or cut at the skinny end too, thus making the shafts more rigid and stiff than otherwise.............UNLESS YOU WERE TOUR PRO CALIBER AND ALSO SUPER STRONG, THESE SHAFTS WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE TO HIT BY ANYONE WHO COULD NOT BREAK 80.
.............So in a nutshell, yesterday's REGULAR shafts are much stiffer in shaft flex than today's stiffest off the shelf offerings by a wide margin.
.............................Any old chrome plated steel golf club shaft will be more than strong enough for anything you can probably do to the approx 16 inch section that you'll choose to use. You'll obviously have decisions to make as to what part of the shaft you wish to use.............the fatter part nearer to the grip butt end or as the step downs get closer together and end nearest the iron's hosel.
This is RECYCLING at its finest, and MacGyvering 101.

Simple ordinary HACK SAW and a bit of masking tape or electrical tape or duct tape or even a piece of scotch tape, about an inch long piece wrapped wedding band style around the portion of shaft that you wish to cut.....................WHY? because the tape will keep your hack saw blade from skidding across the chrome plating while you are trying to begin the cut. DON'T WORRY ABOUT CUTTING UP VINTAGE GOLF CLUBS BECAUSE ALTHOUGH MANY ARE STILL SUPERB QUALITY IRONS FOR THOSE LIKE SOME TOUR CALIBER/Low Handicap-Scratch Golfers THAT FAVOR TRADITIONAL BLADES("blade style" irons = typical choice of many who can break 73)...........there are so many vintage sets available and unless the set has perfect groove lines on the clubhead face and it is from one of a few desireable top of the line manufacturer's iron sets, there is no value or demand for these. There is very minor demand for vintage wedges from top of the line clubs because today's sets have less loft on the iron clubs.....due to the rage of marketing to joe average that their clubs hit farther than the competition...............this stupidity is why today's 9 iron is equal to a 7 iron from forty years ago, and today's PW is equal to an 8 iron of forty years ago...........so for really good players, you'll still need clubs to fill in the gaps between the modern PW and the sand wedge in loft...................thus old wedges are prized more than the specialty gap wedges that are in the marketplace.................the only thing with old vintage wedges is that in the hands of a good player, they get worn away (wear out...because the scoring grooves are gone from hitting thousands of shots....... When the USGA outlawed Square Grooves that were first seen on irons at the end of the eighties, and on most everything until the mid-2000's, it gave the public ten years notice before the deadline. Most every golf club Iron from1988 to around circa 2006, possibly more recent has the banned Square Grooves and thus are ILLEGAL for use in any Amateur Tournament..........nobody can use them legally in any form of competition........................now who is gonna really check.............maybe nobody cares in the get together to Benefit Alzheimers or Cancer Research but you can bet that if you're in competition in the Championship flight of your city amateur championship or your club's championship, somebody will bring it up.
Thus about twenty years of wedges (and irons too) are OUTLAWED and illegal for use in any tournament play.
YOU THUS HAVE TO GO WITH VERY OLD wedges or very new. Not many people care to play really old irons and those people don't mind playing more recent but now illegal clubs. The benefit to the very good player is the lofts on the very ancient (legal) wedges...........no benefit to the average hacker that can't break 80. Oh, more useless trivia, some popular top of the line older stuff that was favored by great players during the beginning of the square groove era was modified from a standard v groove to a square u groove...............many were modified during the twenty year period that square grooves were in place....thus making it nearly impossible to tell if somebody is cheating because their clubs may pre-date the square groove era BUT have been modified to square groove specification and thus now illegal although from appearance as to year model they would fly under the radar because those clubs appear legal for play as originally manufactured based on cosmetic details/markers that tell the year of manufacture.
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