Self Build Bamboo Bike Frame Kit Build Thread

[RoubaixCube]

Wouldnt it be funny if you could stick a £700-2000 Di2 groupset on it just for laugh and troll snobbish MAMIL's on the commute home?

I can already see their unholy rage and disdain on some their faces as you roll past them. No doubt they'll probably waiting along the same stretch of road the very next day with pitchforks at the ready.

 

[Drago]

Only the lightest carbon pitchforks though.

 

[chriswoody]

I would love to do what you are doing. However, lack of time and a history of low-quality workshop outputs from school and college suggests that this would not be a good idea for me, and I will just have to buy a ready-made frame or bike.

Is bamboo a good material for making bikes? Given that Far Eastern countries quite happily use it for scaffolding poles (and for proper construction, not just village Health and Safety nightmares), and given the environmental credentials of bamboo (fast growing, fertiliser free, harvested above the root, not the whole plant), it appears to be so. However, it is a lovely-looking material, and having seen one in the flesh, I have fallen in love!

Don't let time stop you, I've two small kids and a full time job. My time is limited to a quick hour or two in the evening between the kids going to sleep and me collapsing as well. I've just come up now from the cellar after a satisfying hour whittling the seat stays. I decided to stop short of carving the junction with the seat tube because I was feeling to tired and worried I might screw it up. This really is a slow build, but I'm also drawing it out because I'm enjoying myself and I don't want it to end too quick.

Bamboo is meant to be a good material for bikes, it's meant to absorb road vibrations really well and fall somewhere between carbon and steel in lightness. I'll have to let you know how true that all is once it's built.

Wouldnt it be funny if you could stick a £700-2000 Di2 groupset on it just for laugh and troll snobbish MAMIL's on the commute home?

I can already see their unholy rage and disdain on some their faces as you roll past them. No doubt they'll probably waiting along the same stretch of road the very next day with pitchforks at the ready.

Funny you should say that, I've seen a few of these built up with high end kit. I'm not sure I've seen Di2 though. You can fit these frames out any way you want, the latest kit drop outs have disc brake mounts if you want, though I asked for horizontal dropouts for mine. Here's a pic of one road bike built up from the same kit I have with what looks like SRAM kit:

I won't be going for anything quite as fancy though, I've a set of Surly Pacer steel forks to pop on it and a single speed wheel in the back.

 

[chriswoody]

So a bit of an update. The Chainstays are cut and shaped, pretty much finished and ready and one Seatstay is half finished. Really coming together now.

Bamboo is certainly an interesting material to work with. As I mentioned before, some of the pieces can look a bit rough and the worst piece I've got I decided to use as the Chainstay and hide the rough area by orientating it so it faces down to the ground. The other Chainstay is interesting as well, again looking at the image below, you can see it's got a bit of a dog leg to it. So I had to be really careful how I orientated it so that there was still clearance for the wheel. Wheel clearance is also an issue that needs to be checked at this stage and there certainly isn't a great deal of wiggle room here.

So I just need to work on the Seatstays now and all of the main frame tubes will be complete.

 

[buzzy-beans]

Up until quite recently there was a bamboo furniture manufacturer in Leicestershire by the name of Angraves (I knew the family quite well), they imported bamboo from all over the World of which some were of a truly massive trunk thickness and diameter and some were not much thicker than matchsticks.

Almost all of them were trimmed to length and then after very careful selection and grading, they were inserted into a steamer and left to cook for quite some time before being removed and immediately placed into jigged clamps which resulted in them being bent exceptionally carefully to whatever shape the furniture designers felt was required. When fully dried, the clamps were released and the pieces had almost always retained the exact shape that was expected and more importantly without loosing any of the strength.

My reason for making this comment is to ask @chriswoody if he thought his build would be helped by having some very carefully formed bamboo pieces in the build?

 

[chriswoody]

Thats an interesting story @buzzy-beans about the furniture and steaming the bamboo. I know steaming works well with wood, but it's interesting to hear that it works with Bamboo too.

To answer your question though, I don't think there would be any need for the process on a bike frame. Ultimately a frame is just a series of straight tubes bonded together. The process could be used to make perfectly straight tubes, but then it would be a lot of work for no real gain. I was pondering the other day wether the fact that it's not perfectly straight was an issue and I realised that ultimately you need several fixed points that have to line up and all of these are provided by the jig. What happens in between is immaterial as long as they don't pull the fixed points out of alignment. The curly Hithchens frames are a good example of this, with their wonderful curly stays.

Another question could be wether the tubes should be trimmed to length and pre-mitred and there are certainly kits out there like this, however, where's the fun and challenge in that?

At the end of the day, the slightly out of wack tubes and the various different colourations all add up to a unique frame that will have a lot of character.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

Re: steaming

I'm not sure about bamboo but when steaming wood it doesn't take the exact set you give it but rather springs back a bit to give you a shape in-between the original and what you set it at. It takes experience and/or trial and error to know how far to bend it to ultimately get the desired shape. IIRC even then you have to allow for some of the pieces to come out wrong for whatever reason.

It's more common to build up a curve by laminating thick veneers together a bit like plywood, especially when doing one-offs or small runs, as it is more predictable. This has the disadvantage though of only being able to curve in one geometrical plane. Also, the glue lines can show and give away the fact that it isn't plain wood.

 

[buzzy-beans]

I know steaming works well with wood, but it's interesting to hear that it works with Bamboo too.

It most certainly does and according to my long lost friend, the longer you steam it the more pliable it becomes and then if you clamp it to a shape and let it fully dry out then it will retain the formed shape with virtually no spring back.
Angraves used it to form the curved shape to their carver and dining room chairs as well as the circular tops to tables in bamboo which was by memory of about 25mm to 50mm diameter.

 

[chriswoody]

So it's been a few enjoyable days of whittling Bamboo, really quite relaxing and satisfying work. The top of the seat stays are quite complex where they meet the seat tube, or at least they are when you decided to try and make them fit as well as I am! Anyway there mostly finished, the right one needs some more work, but were almost there and the frame is looking like a frame now.

 

[raleighnut]

So it's been a few enjoyable days of whittling Bamboo, really quite relaxing and satisfying work. The top of the seat stays are quite complex where they meet the seat tube, or at least they are when you decided to try and make them fit as well as I am! Anyway there mostly finished, the right one needs some more work, but were almost there and the frame is looking like a frame now.

View attachment 383157 View attachment 383158 View attachment 383159 View attachment 383160

Would it not be better if the seat stays touched each other where they meet at the seat cluster or does that compromise wheel clearance ?

 

[alicat]

Looking fab. So what are you going to do for the rest of the winter?

 

[chriswoody]

Would it not be better if the seat stays touched each other where they meet at the seat cluster or does that compromise wheel clearance ?

What's a little hard to discern from the pictures is that the left hand seat stay wraps around to almost the centre line of the Seat post and when I've finished the right hand one, then that should also do the same, so in effect they will be almost touching. I do need to leave some room for the wrapping of the hemp and as you say the biggest concern is wheel clearance so I also need to keep checking for that and making sure that there is enough room also.

Looking fab. So what are you going to do for the rest of the winter?

There's still a long way to go on this! I've the Seat Stays to finish, then the brake and Chain Stay bridges to make and fit. Then the rear triangle needs tacking, before the all important lugs needs making. In effect these frames can be built in a very short time frame, but I want to take my time and smooth and paint the hemp lugs when there finished.

Then when the frame is finally finished, I still need to kit it out and turn it into a bike. I'll be a while yet.

 

[chriswoody]

So keeping in mind what I said earlier about the wheel clearance I decided that it was best if I properly tested the back wheel for clearance. Given I'm pretty much at the stage of glueing the frame, they'll be no going back at that stage. Up till now, I've just used some rough measurements taken off of an old wheel, and it's shown that clearance is there, but not much. So now I've got around to purchasing the actual wheels that I'll be using so they will actually fit in to the frame, unlike my old ones which are too wide. I decided to take out the rear jig and actually fit the wheel in place to check for the fit.

First things first was to borrow some of my kids lego and build an alternative jig to hold up the stays.

With that done and the rest of the stays taped firmly into place it was time to fit the wheel.

So whilst everything fits well and there is clearance, it is on the tight size and these are 25mm tyres, not much chance to upgrade to 28mm in the future.

So I think I'll move the top of the Seat Stays further out, I've a few ideas on how best to do it, so I'll have a mess around with it tomorrow.

 

[buzzy-beans]

LEGO, the WORLDS greatest ever invention!!!

 

[QFour]

Have been reading your posts. It all looks very neat.

Found this don't know if you have read it https://www.instructables.com/id/Building-a-Recumbent-Bamboo-Trike-Frame/