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geekhouse/aarn: raw oregon manifest custom dropouts [bicycle]

Since there were so many custom parts and designed elements on with the Oregon Manifest design competition entry that I worked on with Geekhouse Bikes (see geekhouse/aarn: oregon manifest utility/cargo bike [bicycle]), I decided to put together a post with a few shots of the raw dropouts. I went by the machine shop the other day and the machinist had made an extra set of these for me.

On the final build, these dropouts were slotted from the back - much like a normal track dropout - but originally these were a modification to a 5mm allen head dropout that I designed for Marty prior to 2011 NAHBS. I designed simple front and rear dropouts that both used a stainless steel carrier which allowed for a flat head cap screw to be used with hubs featuring internally threaded axles. These didn’t make it to the show for a few reasons (the customer didn’t like them) - so I’m going to ghost-of-done these onto my blog. 

[edit: drawings removed - I guess they are going to go on a Geekhouse soon - Stay tuned for that]

So, anyway, the OR Manifest dropouts were standard 20mm track nut versions of these dropouts that never got made. Plus, the tabs were designed so that they could be slotted right into the exact diameter and bend radius tubing that was used for the “stays” on the manifest bike. 

The rear end of the manifest bike was a little more rigid than Marty had expected, so it just made sense to slot them from the rear when the bike was being built - especially considering that they were not designed for full-width axles. Just some ghost-of-done stories before Halloween for everyone. I’m just going to keep referencing this until everyone is on the same page.

new black studio/aarn: studio sign [misc]

I cut a sign for Stebs (Paper Fortress Films) and Alicia at New Black Studio. New Black Studio is the photo studio here at Fringe that they have been revamping and outfitting for rental use, as well as for internal projects. They have a lot of gear that is available for rental (strobes, rigging, etc.) and the studio is looking pretty good. I am not a sign-maker, this was just a favor for some pals.

They dropped off a print of what they wanted on my desk with some rough dimensions. I cut the sign out of 0.050” aluminum sheet with my CNC router, then attached it to spacers and taped that to the wall. One day later the whole sign had fallen down. So I used some tapcons and attached some plexi to the wall and then glued the spacers to that. I wasn’t happy with how the plexi looked against the wall, so I came back with a hammer and roughed it up a bit to give it that hot shattered glass look. And…I’m just realizing as I write this that I hung the “A” backwards…another reason why I should not make signs. 

I took some pictures of the sign when I got it up the second time. Hopefully it will stay put.

Stebs gives me the thumbs up while he holds the flash for my photo. 

royal h cycles/aarn: seat stay caps [bicycle]

Took me forever to get around to documenting this little bike bit. Months and months ago, Bryan of Royal H Cycles walked out of his shop, and over to my office (about 10ft). He placed the following items on my desk: a rusty old seat stay plug, a sticky note with some specs, and a drawing in pencil.

A month or so later, we had some of these dudes made in stainless and 4130. Turning a sketch into a 2d/3d model and eventually a tangible part is a process that I have become more adept at over the years (both from my own sketches and others’), but there was something crazy about the pencil drawing that Bryan handed me. It took me a few tries, but I finally got it where I liked it. Bryan has put these on a few bikes at this point, and they look pretty sharp. 

First photograph is by Jonathan Henig, it appeared in a post on Bryan’s Blog.

The stainless caps first appeared on a bike for the people over at Lovely Bicycle.

geekhouse/aarn: oregon manifest utility/cargo bike [bicycle]

Back in March, I was walking around MoMA in NYC and I got a call from Marty from Geekhouse Bikes, wanting to know if I would be interested in submitting an entry to the Oregon Manifest competition with him. I guess that I said “yes.”

Marty, Greg, Brad, Robot, and myself sat down in April and started to hash out ideas for different functional details for the bike. Greg had put together a bunch of blank bike templates to draw over, and they had selected their favorite. In the next month or so, Marty and I developed the geometry for the bent tubing in software, and worked out ideas for the custom dropouts and features.

Really nothing happened again on the bike, except brainstorming and sketches, until mid-summer, when we had some dropouts made and I started playing around with some ideas for integrated frame elements using the CAD drawing that we made.

I thought that it would be really cool to use sheet metal to make some non-traditional custom fenders for the bike. I wanted the rear fender to be a single assembly with mounting features for the chain guard - to add some continuity to the overall look of the bike. After the rear fender was designed and styled, I designed a front fender, and eventually a chain guard for the bike. The flat pattern sheet metal parts were tricky to design, due to the geometry of the bike, and my desire to keep the part count low. I used locating holes on the rear fender to indicate where the bends needed to be, since there were no square edges to snap a line off of, once the part was cut. The back end of the bike frame tapers out, so the rear fender, as a flat pattern needed to splay out accordingly.

The chain guard is probably the part with which I am the most satisfied. It is a single sheet metal part that is bent and then the front is rolled onto itself and riveted to a tab. In order to make the gap distance less critical (and avoid having to weld anything) in the region that is concentric with the chain ring on the front side of the chain guard, I turned the gap into an aesthetic feature…which worked out well. All of the sheet metal parts were cut on my CNC router and fabricated in-house. With the exception of one very minor tweak that needed to take place, all of the parts worked out on the first shot at fabrication, which I am very happy about.

Robot sent us some specs for the LEDs and circuitry, and I was at Geekhouse wiring up the bike until 4am on the day that Marty and Brad were leaving for Oregon.

On the Manifest: I really wish that there was more media coverage during the event. Being all the way on the other coast, I was hoping for a little more information on the internet. The competition itself brought out some of the best custom bikes that I have seen. I was/am proud to have been able to show work in the field with the other entries. We didn’t go into the competition thinking that we would win, but it made not winning that much easier seeing the number of really awesome bikes that were in attendance.

Studio shots are from Oregon Manifest and Chris King Cycle Group. We didn’t even get a chance to take a decent picture of this whip before it got packed up.

Marty has a lot of process shots up here.

My media is here - Will update with new shots.

I will post some better shots of the chain guard and some of the details once the boys get back from the wild west. Thanks again to Geekhouse for involving me in this process. Marty and Brad are both super talented and a pleasure to work with.

aarn: available now: 144#47 track chainring [bicycle]

This is my first self-branded product. Before I get into the details, these are available in black and clear anodized finish for $67 in my online store.  Store is located here, here, and here. Quantities are extremely limited. I had 50 total made; 30 in black and 20 in clear. Other than the anodizing treatment, all of these bicycle chainrings are identical. The bolt circle diameter is 144-mm, and each has 47 teeth. Chainrings are designed for ⅛-in track/bmx chain.

Let’s get into the details - I had been searching for the right machine shop to make these chainrings for about eight months. Finally I decided on a two-man shop in Peabody, Massachusetts, USA. I am very glad that I waited, because I have not seen CNC machining of this caliber in a long time.

The attention to detail that the machinists paid when crafting these can be seen in the quality of the end product. The rings were fully CNC machined from certified 6061-T6 aircraft grade aluminum plate stock, then lightly buffed and delivered to another local shop for black and clear hardcoat anodizing.

At no point in the process of making these chainrings did a file or manual deburring instrument touch the parts, every single edge on the chainring (front and back) has a precision machine-broken 45-degree 0.010-in deep chamfer. A custom 20-degree chamfer tool was used to precisely bevel each tooth during the machining process. In addition to the quality of the machining and finishing, each part was labeled and inspected before it left the shop. The black anodize is as black as it gets, and the clear anodize is crisp and clean.

Prior to selecting a machine shop, I machined prototype blanks (chainrings with no aesthetic features) with the new tooth profile that I had been developing. I gave these hand-numbered blanks to friends and had them roadtest the fit, noise-level, and wear of the tooth profile. Noise-level might seem like a strange parameter on which to conduct performance tests, but I was trying to get the widest quiet-running tooth possible. Wide BMX-style teeth grind and grate until they are broken in and I wanted these chainrings to be smooth and quiet from day one. I also went through a dozen or so designs before settling on the the cut-out design and labeling scheme.

After I had selected a machine shop, I cleared out my Roth IRA…I mean Apple stock…I mean piggy bank to finance these chainrings out of my own pocket. To keep costs low I have marked up these chainrings $17 each, and am offering them to the public directly. MSRP on these chainrings would be more than $100 if I tried to distribute them to retailers because of how much I paid to have them manufactured. Most chainrings coming from China cost about $10 to make (I know, I sent out some requests to shops in China to see what was up), mark-ups from distributors and retail shops comprise the rest of the sticker price. I am trying to provide a limited-edition, high-quality, locally-made product at an affordable price point. Each part is packaged in brown paper with a “QC Pass” inspection stamp, and numbered (x/20 or x/30 depending on finish color).

Get ‘em while they last here.

Media can be found here.

I’ll be putting some shot up of these on a bike very shortly, I just got them in on Friday and wanted to get them live.

Prior art: aarn: boring 42th chainring v2 [bicycle], aarn: 42th prototype track chainring [bicycle]

[edit]

Rings on some whips:

(Party chainring photo by E. Baumann)

aarn: lightweight custom drum harness [music]

I’m going to have to start at the beginning for this one… Two weeks ago, I was on the beach attempting to be completely off-grid for a week, on my first extended personal vacation in who knows how long.  At the airport, on my way home, I checked my email on my phone and Kevin from Firefly Bicycles had sent me some information about an inquiry that they had received from a film maker about helping a boy actualize his lifelong dream of being in his high school marching band. The film maker, Sean Fine of Fine Films, explained in the email that the fourteen year old boy has progeria and that he can’t use any of the standard marching band equipment, because it is too big and heavy for his body. His parents were looking for someone to build some kind of custom harness to comfortably attach him to his scaled-down snare drum, so that he could play and march in the band. Kevin passed my info on to Sean, so that I could get some details. Sean passed my info on to Leslie, the mother of the boy. We went back and forth via email for a few days trying to figure out a time when I could meet them and see if a simple retrofit could solve the problem. I suggested over email that they just drop all of the gear that they had off at my office, and I would just make it all fit together somehow or make it smaller or something. 

Leslie, Scott, and Sam came by on Sunday, and I inspected their existing harness. I tried to think of any possible way to avoid making an entire custom system for Sam, but it appeared to be the only option. Sam’s parents, Leslie and Scott, had looked everywhere for an off-the-shelf solution and had tried everything to make the current gear work. They needed something fast - Sam’s marching band camp was starting the next day. We started talking about where Sam was experiencing the most pain, and what parts of the current harness were causing the most problems and I began to get a feel for what he needed. I was picturing a system that took most of the load off of Sam’s shoulders, instead relying more on his waist for support (much like a hiking pack - but reversed). I had an idea of how to make something that would work. I took a lot of measurements of Sam and his drum, made a couple of reference sketches and then they left. 

That night I roughed out a design for an ergonomically-formed metal frame assembly that would be easy (well, relatively) to fabricate, light and strong. Within twenty-four hours of our meeting I had designed, programmed, cut, and formed Sam’s new snare drum harness. It was made from the only piece of stock that I had in the office, a 12x24” sheet of 0.090” 3000-series aluminum. I had barely been able to nest a cnc toolpath for the three parts that I needed onto the available amount of material. The bare frame assembly weighed only 0.8-lbs. Sam and Leslie came in for a rough fitting, they were very excited about the new harness, and I was very pleased that everything fit as intended.

The next day I lined the inner contact regions of the aluminum frame with 0.375-in thick neoprene rubber and assembled a strap system from a variety of different nylon straps, catches, and buckles that I had laying around. 

Leslie, Scott, and Sam came by to pick up the fully-assembled harness system on Wednesday afternoon. We mounted the drum to the frame, and Sam was finally able to march around comfortably. After we double checked everything and practiced taking the harness on and off a few times, they headed back to the night session of Sam’s marching band camp so that he could show everyone how well he could play and march. This is the most rewarding project that I have ever worked on. I’m going to see Sam play during the half-time show at a high school football game next month. It is going to be awesome.

There are a few more shots of the project here. Sean’s documentary film about Sam, “Growing Up Old” is set to air on HBO in 2012.

MWM graphics/aarn: numerically controlled drawing series [misc]

This project is a collaboration between MWM Graphics, Paper Fortress Films, and myself. The process of creating a “drawing” using the numerically controlled Sharpie jig that I designed [see repeat press/aarn: project: wallpaper numerically controlled sharpie [misc]] is documented in an amazing little video (embedded below). Vector graphics, created by artist Matt W. Moore, are converted into tool paths and then machine language which controls my 3-axis CNC machine retrofitted with a special fixture - which holds a marker and mimics typical hand pressure during the act of drawing. Thirty-three mechanical drawings in three designs were produced using this process. The original drawings are for sale in Matt’s online store, printed on French 80-lb Dur-O-Tone “Butcher Extra White” paper and paired with the actual Sharpie used for each drawing.  

Numerically Controlled from Paper Fortress on Vimeo.

Notes:

Working with Matt and Stebs was awesome, and I’m really excited about how this turned out. I did some work and figured out how to properly fixture and locate the paper, which made the set-up really smooth. I also designed a new clamp/locating mechanism for the Sharpie jig that limited the movement to just z-axis compression (unlike the rubber band that I had been using to keep everything tight), which really improved the repeatably and precision of the process. Even with all of those process details figured out, it still took me about 30-hrs to get 33 drawings that were perfect. A lot of people will probably look at this video, or the prints and write them off because they were made with a machine, but there was still an enormous amount of work that everyone did to make the end products as high-quality as they are. Big thanks to everyone who was involved and helped out with any of the little details along the way. Buy some prints!! Blog media is here.

The three designs are shown below:

[Video: Paper Fortress Films, Photos 2-4: MWM]

PLR/aarn: picture frame doweling jig [furn]

Peter Reynolds is a good friend and talented worker of woods. Peter and I have worked together on projects ranging from the launch of T0001 and Union Foundry (which we have handed over to Peter as the sole-proprietor since the release of T0001) to copy for a cookbook (he has a way with words). Our most recent work together was in the design and fabrication of a custom jig for locating and drilling holes in the process of crafting hardwood picture frames. The jig has two hardened steel drill bushings press-fit into a CNC cut maple form. The jig is aligned onto the cut face of a mitered 45-degree piece of framing stock, and lightly clamped from the outside (using a vice or c-clamp) to hold the position, then the two holes are drilled. In assembly of a picture frame two identically cut and drilled pieces are arranged in opposite orientation with the cut faces of the miter touching each other and glued dowel pins are pressed in, which hold the corner of the picture frame together (I know, we need some pictures of this). Back to the design…after brainstorming with Peter on the operation and assembly of the jig, I took his dimensioned sketches and generated a styled 3d model around the principal of the mechanism. Most of the aesthetic features in the part are designed around the task that the overall part and/or feature accomplishes. Recesses and material removal allow for controlled flexing, and limit where the operator can clamp the fixture. Corner cutouts allow for a rounded tool to cut a corner that can snugly and reliably fixture and locate a sharp-cornered rectangular cross-section of wood.

I then created a series of tool paths and cut the jig out of maple using my CNC router. A dab of mineral oil and a wipe of Renaissance wax finished up the piece. Hopefully we can put together a process video or a series of photos to show how this jig works in the near future. I know that Peter is working to try and get a portfolio developed to showcase some of his skills and projects. Stay tuned for more info on Peter Reynolds and the future of Union Foundry.

firefly bicycles/aarn: small parts [bicycle]

Firefly Bicycles are the jam. I started working with Tyler and Jamie back during their days at Independent Fabrication when we worked on a special machined seatmast attachment mechanism and custom rotary-lasercut lug package for the IF TiFLW (see post independent fabrication/aarn: tiflw seatmast clamp and styling [bicycle]). I have been behind the scenes helping them with little details since day -1, because I really believe in their abilities and have a great respect for their product (and they are great people). I helped them with the manufacturing design and sourcing for their headbadges, after id29 had put together a an incredibly good looking branding suite.

The next task that I helped them with was designing a suite of waterjet cut Ti and stainless endcaps for the seatstays and chainstays on their bicycles. They sent me the tubing sizes that they wanted to use and the cut angles and some sketches to show how their dropout would interface and I developed the geometry for four different sizes of caps and then made manufacturing drawings for them and sourced production. 

I’m really proud to have been involved with these guys from the get-go and I hope to do more work with them in the future. If you haven’t checked out their work, take a look at a few of these.

aarn: boring 42th chainring v2 [bicycle]

In the last few weeks my beater bike has turned into a mechanical breadboard for some of these projects that I have been sitting on. About a year and a half ago I developed an improved tooth profile as part of a series of new chainrings that I designed/engineered for Nao’s project 3RRR. The 3RRR chainrings were prototyped and then I made some revisions to the tooth profile - so about eight months later I decided to test the limits of my CNC router by designing a really simple chainring for my bike using the new profile and making it in-house. 

The tooth profile on this ring was designed to occupy a greater percentage of the underutilized space between the rollers in a track chain. It is a great improvement over my last chainring (see: aarn: 42th prototype track chainring [bicycle]), and runs pretty quietly. Building on the idea of developing my own tooth profile from scratch has allowed me to manipulate the geometry in a very unconventional way to try and get the best running chainring possible. I think that I’m going to make some more prototypes to refine the geometry and then start the search for a new manufacturing house for the 3RRR product line again.

aarn: regular pattern cargo rack [bicycle]

About a year and a half ago I started mulling around the idea of making a bent metal cargo rack. I toyed with the idea of cutting a coffee cup hole into the rack and a long slot for a u-lock - but ultimately I favored the simplicity of just a fancy looking rack. Originally, the thought was that the metal of the rack would come up behind the bars and clamp into an integrated rack-stem clamp thingy. Last week I realized that I have no interest in making a stem - at least not right now - and I finally came up with the missing link of how it would…link…to the bicycle. 

I really wanted to style another item into in my “regular pattern” series (see aarn: regular pattern stairwell guard turned public art [arch]) and while it looked really wonky on the computer, I think that it looks pretty great on a bike. The rack geometry is custom fit around my dying daily-ride bicycle. The vertical-ish portion of the rack is parallel to my 73-degree headtube, and the struts are designed so that the surface of the rack is perfectly horizontal with two contact points built on precision shoulder screws to minimize twist and rotation around the front axle and increase the rigidity. 

I cut all of the 0.125-in aluminum structural parts on the CNC router in my office and then brought them over to a friend at a machine shop who helped me make the main bends using a brake, and a hydraulic arbor press loaded with a 1-in ball bearing for the strut tabs. As is always the case on first attempts, the first time through forming the rack made for some undesirable scratches and dents trying to iron out the process  - but hey, look at my bike, it’s about to fall apart. After a little polishing and filing I was able to get most of the big marks out of the finish.

A drilled and tapped shaft collar clamps the top of the rack to the quill stem. I really hate the look of racks that attach to the handlebars, so when I figured this out last Wednesday I was able to design the rack in a day. Exactly one week turnaround from design to fabrication and assembly. I had to remake the struts once because I ignored the geometry that I developed, but it was an easy fix.

I think that it turned out pretty well. Higher res photos are on my flickr. I would consider making a few more of these, but they would be really expensive and would have to be custom to fit the bike geometry - unless I redesigned how it fits and attaches to allow for some adjustments - which I guess would not be too hard. I don’t know. Blog out.

icarus frames/aarn: custom track dropout [bicycle]

Ian and I started making plans to design some custom track dropouts for his custom bicycle company (Icarus Frames) back in the summer of 2008. Since then, we would occasionally mention to each other that we should get that project in the works, and then a few months ago we finally did it. Long intro - spinning the yarn. I really wanted to put something together for Icarus that matched the builder’s aesthetics and construction methods, and when Ian originally had the idea to use brazed brass plates on the steel dropouts, it was perfect.

We went back and forth with sketches for the overall form of the component for a few weeks, and then when we thought that we were close, we prototyped a set in soft steel. We tweaked the functional elements of the design based off of the look and feel of the prototypes, and used permanent markers on the dropouts to sketch different locations and possible layouts for the brass plates and cutouts. The final form of the brass plates and corresponding cutout recess geometry for the dropout was just a shot-in-the-dark design that came about after we had found ourselves unenthusiastically reviewing a pile of marked-up printouts and needed a new direction. After the design was finalized we had the dropout profile waterjet cut out of 4130 stock, and then both sides were machined to accept the inset brass plates. The plates are waterjet cut from a really durable and hard to machine naval brass, and then silver brazed onto both sides of the dropouts.

Ian’s finish work and attention to detail is so amazing. When I finally saw these on a raw bicycle frame, I was really thrilled. The one frame that features these dropouts has been sent to the Ukraine, and somehow missed getting fully photographed before getting packed up, but look for these on some of Ian’s next bicycles. I hope that these become a production item because I think that we really put a good amount of effort into them and the result is a pretty sexy rear end.

[Photos #1 and 3: Pasha Vrzhesch and Ian Sutton]

aarn: turntable bounce lamp [furn]

I came up with the general form and idea for this lamp a couple of months ago when I realized that I could not operate my turntable that well in the dark (It’s hard to listen to all of my sick vinyl if I can’t see where the tracks are). The idea stuck with me and last Sunday I decided that I was going to attempt to design, fabricate, and document the light for my turntable within the following week.

I knew that I wanted to make it in-house, so I designed the lamp as a flat-pattern sheet metal part, with perforated seams, to make the task of bending the metal a little easier - since I don’t have a box brake. Even though this is just a one-off, I wanted to approach the design in a way where the “product” could be shipped to the end user in the flat state, and with some ingenuity, the end user could put it together with little struggle.

Unfortunately the 0.090” thick alloy 3003 aluminum put up a little bit more of a fight than I would have hoped when it came time to bend it into shape, but the seam design worked well once a technique was developed. I fashioned a makeshift brake out of a piece of jig plate which I clamped over the workpiece, and fastened to the workbench. Prior to bending, I cut the flat-pattern design from a 12x24” piece of stock using a CNC router. Sketches and the flat-pattern design are shown above. The idea behind the skewed geometry of the “bounce” portion of the light is that it would direct more light toward the tone arm on the turntable.

Once bent into shape, the light reflecting surface was masked and sprayed white with high-gloss enamel paint, in an attempt to maximize the effect of the light source. The light source for this lamp is just a battery powered 5-in florescent unit. I would have liked to do something more complicated, like a really industrial raw bulb, but I was also trying to complete it in a week and had to make some sacrifices. 

Another feature of this lamp, is an integrated “now playing” record holder, which is accomplished by the addition of two tabs which stick out from the rear of the lamp. I thought that this was too functional, and it looks dumb and takes away from the overall aesthetic, but I couldn’t resist the chance to put something really useful and optional into the design. More photos of the process and the record holder part of the lamp are in my flickr set for this project.

aarn: kittinger desk drawer shelving unit [furn]

Three or four years ago, my friend, and neighbor at the time, Cecily left me a really nice Kittinger brand desk that had been repainted eggshell blue. The desk had a lot of character and was a tank. When it came time to move I didn’t feel like taking the desk with me, but, since I’m a jerk, I took all of the drawers out of it, leaving a 200-lb, completely useless, handmade skeleton of a desk in the basement of my old apartment.

In the years following my departure from that apartment in Allston, I have moved the drawers twice with me, and installed them in different configurations as shelving in my new apartments. This time around, I made a big shelving unit for my living room. I laid out the drawers on the ground to get the right look, and then flipped them over a screwed them together used scraps from slats from an old bed. I then attached the whole unit to the wall, and we filled it with crap.

michael dacey/aarn: fringe circle sign [manf]

In the weeks leading up to our winter party, everyone at Fringe put in some long hours to get the space ready and refine the overall feel. A new website by Atedrake and a fresh identity by Michael Dacey of Repeat Press were unveiled at the event, as well as an awesome amount of aesthetic improvements to the space.

I had been wanting to cut some kind of sign for the space on my router, and hadn’t really done anything with wood yet, so I took to opportunity to make some noise. I cut the Fringe logo out of a 24x24-in 3/4-in thick plywood piece that was salvaged from some phase of demolition that occurred at the space prior to the party.

It turned out pretty well, especially for a garbage piece of wood. The whole sign took about an hour to cut, mainly because of the annular pocket region surrounding the “F.” A little paint on the edges and in the circle and then it got slapped onto the inside of the main entrance door at Fringe. Thanks to Peter Reynolds for cutting this sheet to size and mounting it to the door. There’s a shot of this sign getting cut in the amazing promo video that Stebs of Paper Fortress put together.