Tip 5: Welding quality

I think I've mentioned before that welding is not my specialty. Apart from that, good welding equipment is very expensive. My cheap stick welding machine is good to spot weld parts together and then I let a qualified welder do the rest, but be careful! Even if you think the job has been done well, you have to make sure!
I always go for TIG-welding. It gives a clean result, is applicable on all sorts of metals and is by far the strongest connection you can get by welding. Like I explained in my "Tip 1", I had to change my steering housing from metal tubing to a decent housing made from a solid bar. The new housing needed to be welded on like the first one. Unfortunately, my regular mechanic was closed at that time, so I had to ask someone else to do the welding.
Probably due to a misunderstanding, the other guy used acetylene to weld the housing on to the forks.
Luckily I do a checkup of the bike before every ride, so this is what happened after a few rides:

This could have resulted in a serious accident if I hadn't noticed this in time! Of course, the repair was pretty straight forward and I was riding again a few days later...

Tip 4: how to extend your spokes

As I pointed out in my previous tip, I used bicycle spokes in the end with the following specs:
- length: 215 mm
- material: stainless steel
- 11G (2.9mm diameter)
I paid about 65€ for 100 spokes.

But now comes the trick: I needed spokes of about 650mm and thus needed to lengthen the bicycle spokes...! So, back on the net to search for a solution. It was actually Joff Summerfield who gave me the idea to use a kind of a long nut to make a connection between the original bicycle spoke and the spoke extension. After a search on the web, I decided to use PCB spacers. These are normally used to keep electronic components and board at a distance from each other.
I bought about 100 of these things in a Hong-Kong ebay shop for about 20€

They have a length of 30mm and have M3 thread inside. They are made out of brass.
It took me some time to cut every spoke and spoke extension with M3 thread, but the effort was worth it: like I said, I've had no more spoke trouble since I changed my spoke configuration like this.

Tip 3: use spokes with a 90° bend at the end

My first big front wheel concept was made with just straight spokes with a nut on one end and a 'nipple' on the rim side to put tension on the spoke. During the time I rode the bike with this configuration, I had broken spokes at the hub side every time, which frustrated me. There was no way I could undertake big trips with this kind of unreliable setup. Since the spokes tend to break at the hub side and not on the rim side, I decided to change my front hub. I also bought 'regular' 90° bend bicycle spokes of the 11G-type which have a shaft diameter of 2.9mm.
Since the use of this new type of spoke setup, I've had no broken spokes anymore so far.
Also, if you think about it, it is much more straight forward to tighten the spokes, since the hub side of the spoke has a 90° bend.

Another thing I experienced with straight spokes is that the wheel can suddenly 'jump' of out shape and leave you with the number 8 instead of a nice and round number 0 wheel. Normally you can push the wheel back in shape, but this is stressful since it can happen if you push too hard on one pedal for example when driving up hill.
This is also the reason I used a 3X cross pattern to weave my spokes for more strength and stability.
So, actually two lessons learned in this case.

Tip 2: use a steering pin tension bolt that is strong enough

I started out with a steering pin tension bolt of M10 which broke after a couple of rides. Luckily the part that broke off was left inside the steering housing and I was able to reach my workshop without accidents.
The second attempt with an M10 bolt was unsuccessful too and left the bolt bent.
I did a third attempt with an M12 bolt - which is the bolt on the right in the picture - , but in the end, I used an M16 bolt to be sure. I suppose an M14 could have worked fine too since the M12 didn't show any signs of wear or tear.

Tip 1: don't use metal tube for the steering housing

My first steering housing was made of gas-tube with a wall thickness of 3 mm. This proved to be insufficient. Especially in the beginning of your career as a penny farthing rider, you tend to use too much force on the handlebars in an attempt to keep your balance.
The steering column is a part on the bike where a lot of forces are concentrated: the weight of the rider is distributed on the steering column through the steering pin ; the force exercised on the handlebars is also transferred to the steering column and the tensioner bolt to keep the steering pin nice and stable between the two extremes of the steering column also puts the steering column under a lot of stress.
This was the result of a few rides with the original gas tube steering column:

As you can see, the steering column opened up by the forces exercised on the bike. You can see the paint that chipped off in the corners of the opening for the steering pin.

The new steering column was made of a solid stock metal bar and the wall thickness was kept at 5 mm.
This proved to be the right strength and everything has been perfect since then.

Winter...

Winter is coming and I need a new project...
But then: it's been ages since I posted on my penny farthing building blog.

So, what happened after my last post where I impatiently awaited my handle bars? In the end, I went for straight handlebars because the local mechanic couldn't bend the right curve for the 'moustache'...
I hope to post a number of 'do's' and 'don'ts' soon for people who are thinking of starting a similar building project, but more about that later. I've been paddling about 300 km in the country side and a little in the city as well, but cobble stones are awful to ride on with a solid tire...!
I've been told I'm popping up on lot's of peoples FB pages so here is a rare shot of me mounting my penny farthing:

Cheers!
F.