Reproducible Wooden Bike

The idea of this project is to make a wooden bike that you can download and assemble like an IKEA chair. There is already a lot of wooden bikes on the web but if you are not a professional woodworker or you don't want to spend month refining the parts until they would fit together, then the result will not look like the wooden bikes in design magazines...

It took me 7 days to make this bike (without the design) but I never used a CNC router or a hand router before. In Fablab Moscow we have all these machines and I was looking forward to having an opportunity to use it. So now if you wand yours, find a place with a CNC router (fablab or makerspace), cut the parts according to the files, cut also some lumbers and assemble it.

Tools

• CNC router
• Hand router (25mm ball end mill and chamfer or rayon mill)
• Jigsaw
• Pressdrill
• Laser cutter (optional)
• Chisel 12mm

Material

• Plywood (15 and 18 mm)
• Lumber ( 40 x 20 mm: 200, 480, 490, 556, 556, 620, 620 mm) and (30 x 20 mm: 500, 500, 400, 400 mm)
• Cylindric lumber, diameter: 28mm length: 260
• Aluminum 5mm 20 x 40 mm
• Fork bearings
• Pedals with bearings and axle length: 68 mm diameter: 34mm
• HTD 8M 1440 belt
• Tire tubular 22mm
• Wheels axle and bearings length: 140mm
• M4 screws and bolt (40, 50, 70 mm)
• 5 times M6 x 100

Download the file and cut the parts. For the lumber, cut the length:

• 40 x 20 mm: 200, 480, 490, 556, 556, 620, 620 mm (mitre cut at 90 degrees)
• 30 x 20 mm: 500, 500, 400, 400 mm (complicated cut: see the files named "baseArriereBas" and "baseArriereHaut". Detailed explanation later)

I decided to glue one by one each layer rather than stack everything at once because it was easier to control the alignment.

Then I sanded the blocks and made a rayon on each edges.

Unfortunately I had to adapt the lumber thickness with the plywood. I used a frame and a chisel to remove 1mm on each face ends.

The back lumbers have complicated cut so the simplest way to do it fast is to laser cut the shape from the files named "baseArriereBas" and "baseArriereHaut" and report it on the lumbers. Then I cut with the jigsaw and finally sanded the last imperfections.

I doubled the down lumber to increase rigidity, it is now 40 x 40 mm. I recommend to do it also on the horizontal lumber.

For the wheels I used a 3d printed shape to ensure alignment. All these discs have 15 mm thickness except the rear right ones who have 18mm (pulley side).

I did it with the jigsaw but you can probably mill it with the router.

You need to drill the valve hole and make the tire slot. The slot has to be 3.5 mm depth to fit the 622 mm tires. I used a 25 mm drill bit (ball end) because I couldn't find a 22 mm but it seems to be perfect. I dit the slot in two passes: One from one side and the other from the other side. I used an "airbone" pump to inflate the tires.

Finally drilll the rear wheel at 6 mm (use the shape "chablonTrou" as a guide) and add 5 M6 x 100 screws.

Drill the fork hole with a 34mm drill bit. The position is in the center at 30mm from the front.

Then drill all the screw holes at 4mm and assemble the frame with glue and M4 screws. Then add the bearings.

I used the laser cutter to make the pulley but you can also mill it in 15mm plywood. I glued three 5mm layers together. Then mount them on the pedals and the rear wheel.

You also need to add rings on each side of the front pulley to guide the belt (not on the image!).

Cut the down part as in the image. Glue the round lumber and the two 40 x 20 lumbers. The spacing for the bearing is adjusted with the handlebar height.

Cut a 40 x 20 lumber at the desired length with a 70 degree angle. Make a triangular reinforcement and glue it. Finally add wood screws between the saddle and the lumber. You can also sculpt the saddle to your morphology.

Add coating (pain, lacquer or epoxy) to make it waterproof.

I still haven't done it yet because I want to be able to modify my design in this early stage of testing. I will of course notify it in this article if some major changes are done.