My Handbuilt 1888 Whippet with Paul Brodie

hi i'm paul brody this is my shop mitch is  behind the camera welcome we're doing something   a little different this this episode we're not  i'm not gonna make anything or fix anything   we're gonna we're gonna talk about the  whippet that i made back in in 2011 2012   there's a little story i was teaching frame  building 101 and when my students attended class   they had a project they were going to build  themselves a frame and i wanted to say that   i had a project too so i have a book it's called  bicycles and tricycles you might have heard of it   it's 1896 archibald shop it's got a  wealth of information in it on page 296 that's that's where the whippet is  so that's where i found this bike   and every time i i looked at the book i'd always  spend extra time on that page because it had   a marvelous shape to it and i  didn't really know how it worked   it took me quite a while to figure it  out and it's a full suspension bike 1888   so i decided that i was going to undertake the  bike as a project and i knew nothing about it   except for the drawing in the book so i decided  that i was going to make a black bike and it was   going to have shimano pots on it black shimano  and maybe even even disc brakes just to be cool   so i started making the frame and i think i got  the head tube down in a tube i think i had this   much here and then we had an open house and a  friend of a friend came by and he said you know   i think the university of ottawa has  one there maybe you should contact them   so i made a phone call i believe and i talked to  someone and yes they did have one it was up in   the mezzanine not on display it was under  plastic and so i asked a big favor i said   i'd like to build a bike could you  take some photographs of it and   really up close shots shots of all the major  major parts so they sent me some photos and   i got them and i realized then there was much more  elegant and sophisticated than i had ever thought   and i decided that i couldn't put on black shimano  parts and disc brakes i had to do it some justice   so that's when i decided to build it as it is as  as a replica now at this time i became aware of   nabs that's the north american hand-built bicycle  show down in the u.s so i talked to my boss at the   time at the university rolfe and i said there's a  show and i'm building a bike what do you think so   he said okay let me talk about it so he came  back to me and said yes if you build the bike the   university will pay expenses so the airfare hotel  and the booth so at that point i realized that   i'm building a bike for nabs i'm going to have  the bike there with all the best frame builders   in the world so i really had to kind of up  my game so to speak so the bike took about   five months full time to make and when i was  finished i really didn't know what to expect at   the show because i was too close to it i worked  on it every day so we went down to the show and   apparently people really liked it because i won  people's choice that year so that really kind of   helped my career as frame building 101 instructor  it's 1888 actually these bikes were made from   1885 until 1888 it's full suspension but when  you think of full suspension now you think of   young men women leaping off boulders going  down cliffs things like that this was full   suspension but not in the same way it didn't  have air in the tires it had solid tires   and the suspension was to absorb the shock from  the cobblestones and the roughness of the roads   the roads were not in good shape  like we have now they were not smooth   so that's what it did so it took me a little while  to understand how it works it's got a a bunch of   of pivot points there's actually seven of  them so there's one here at the back axle   there's one in behind the bottom bracket  that's number two there's a stabilizer bar   so that would be three and four and then  there's this linkage i call it a fish mouth   that would be five six seven so what's happening  is is the seat tube is is not connected to   what you might call the down tube even though it's  kind of elevated and the wrist stays so this seat   tube can go up and down and and it will there's  one spring and there's no dampening at all so   when someone rides the bike it bobs this is like  a fish mouth and with every every pedal stroke   this is opening and closing so the bike is  constantly doing this as you ride because   no no oil dampening no friction  dampening nothing just the spring so this i guess one of the features of the bike  is that the relationship between the handlebars   and the seat and the pedals  because they are hooked up to   this frame here it's a constant it  never changes it's got a spoon break   there's a brake lever up top here can  you see how when i so when i pedal   that's called a spoon break now if you're going   downhill and it's raining or the  roads are wet i'd say good luck when you need to adjust the chain let's have a  quick look at the chain it's called a block chain   it was a it was a precursor to what's now known  as the roller chain it doesn't have any rollers   this this uh a block chain it was hard  to find i finally got one out of england   it was used on antique bicycles and also   a conveyor belt it's very it's a strong chain  it's heavy and it'll pull a lot of weight   the chain when you have to adjust it you've got  these axle adjusters back here but to move this   you loosen the lock nut you have to take out  the axle and then you would because this is at   an angle because the because the chain stays  at an angle you would have to go one whole   turn put the axle back in lock the lock nuts  and when you're doing that you're making the   chain stay longer and this part of the frame  is is bolted in there so this part of the frame   extends up to the head tube so as you adjust  your your your rear uh a chain and the and the   chainstay length you are moving the head tubes out  of line with each other maybe not by a lot and i'm   not sure how that affects things but that's what's  happening i think that's one of the flaws in   in this design there was nothing else like this  at the time so it was made in from 1885 till 1888   1888 in 1888 that's when dunlop came out with  his pneumatic tire and that changed everything   that's when these bikes stopped getting made  because you didn't need all this sophisticated   linkage and all that now you had air in your  tires i built this one with air in the tires   because i didn't know where to get solid rubber  i was gonna ride it but i've got long legs   this is too short so it doesn't fit me and i  looked at the photographs a lot and i couldn't   figure out how to really make the anchoring  strong between this head tube and this head tube   so if i took the wheel i won't do it but if  i took the wheel i could move the handlebars   so that's why i don't ride the bike it's  just a show bike if you look at the cranks   can you see there's a slot you  can move the pedal back and forth   so if you want a shorter crank or if  you've got one leg longer than the other   that's a nice feature to have i  didn't know where to get a seat from   i didn't know what the seat looked like because  in the photographs i had it was just something   which was really rotted out so i went on  the internet and i did a search for antique   bicycle seats and pages later i found a guy in  england his name was uh tim dawson i believe so   i sent him an email asking him if he had knowledge  or knew how to make a seat for an 1888 whippet   and he responded by sending me a photo  of himself riding his friend's whippet   that's how i knew i found the right guy so  he made this seat and i made all the mounts   and then he asked me if i had pedals and i said  no so he told me about his friend in the czech   republic who was making these pedals and this is  uh it's a reproduction of a high wheeler pedal   the high wheeler is the penny farthing or the  ordinary whatever you want to call it it had   different names so that's where the pedals came  from it was pretty neat how it all came together   and i found a guy in oregon his name is cody   he's a woodworker and i got his card he's  a master woodworker and i told him what i   wanted we talked about the shape the ark  the finish the wood and then i said well   i'll just get you to build me some wooden handle  grips too he says oh no i don't do that so it's   kind of interesting how he's a master woodworker  and the fenders came out really really well   but i made these myself on my lathe so i think  these kind of projects that i get working on i can   i kind of came up with a name i call  it financial recklessness where i just   i start working on a project i don't know  how long it'll take i don't know if i'll   ever make any money off it i don't know  exactly how much it's going to cost and so that is a kind of financial recklessness but it  suits my style and i don't have regrets because   it was a great project working on this bike and  i'd do it again if i was in the same situation   in this video i'm going to show you we're going  to show you how i made some of the parts i can't   show you the whole bike because that would just  take way too long but there's one thing which   i can talk about this this this brake rod  here it started out as a three-quarter inch   rod stainless steel so i held this much  in the lathe so this was in the headstock   and i cut the thread and then i kept moving it  up and making a taper and then i had to bend it   and then i machined it filed it so that was it  was a lot of work to make each individual part   because the only parts i didn't make really  were the tires the rims the spokes the chain   didn't make the seat but everything else  i basically made here's the line drawing   or the or the artist drawing which i found in  the book it's bicycles and tricycles and this   is the this is what i worked off i did a grid  made it full scale i used 700c wheels so i knew   the size of the wheels that's how i got the frame  up to scale i did this out at frame building 101   i think i took a piece of chromoly tube and i  think i used an inch and an eighth head tube   i cut up another piece of tube and braised it all  together and that was how i started the frame i   soaked off the flux i filed it up and it it looked  okay here is the head tube and it's got the down   tube added on to it and at the back that  round thing that's where the two rear forks   add on to so i'm just a kind of a makeshift  frame jig you can see i've got c clamp there and   big bolt and washer up by the head tube that's how  i did it here's the rear forks you could call them   i guess you could call them the seat  stays although they're really heavy duty   i've got an axle in the bottom that's the same  length as the rear axle and i've put some spacers   in there i've held it all with masking tape and  then that got held in the fixture as well you   can see i've got another c clamp down here  holding the axle or the dummy axle in place   and then i did some tig tacking and that's how  that part of the frame all came together now we're   going to look at at the bottom bracket how that  happened because that was kind of complex there   was a lot of different operations for that it's  not just one tube i got some bearings out of the   local bearing supply house i figured out what size  i wanted and then i took a couple blocks of steel   and i scribed the centers and then that went into  the mill and i have a tube as well that those   though that tube will go in between those two  plates once they're machined in the mill vise now   i've got the boring head going with the carbide  cutter and i've i've roughed out the hole for   the bearings now it's not a finished hole because  there's going to be welding involved and you can't   if you bore it out now it's going to go out  around so these holes are probably a little   bit undersized maybe 30 foul i've got the shape  made and i got the tube and so that's gonna   get welded together it'll probably probably get  tic tac first and then brazed and filed because   back in those days they didn't have tig  welding they didn't even have welding they had   they had casting and they had a  hearth where they could braise   they didn't even have oxyacetylene back then  not in the late 1800s that was early 1900s   this little piece here it holds the spring so this  goes onto the bottom bracket so i had to make this   first and then this gets braised onto the bottom  bracket you can see there i've done some nickel   silvering it's still warm you can see some redness  i made up a kind of a fixture holding everything   together this small rod at the back is the  pivot for the chain stays nothing fancy no   bearings that there's just not room for bearings  and then i got a couple bolts and some some of my   hold down clamps off the mill so it's going to get  tig tacked now you got tic tacs it got braised up   doesn't look like a phillip brazed it looked  like i just run some nickel silver around there   i've got it in the lathe now and you can see the  boring tool now i've got to make it the right size   for the bearing it's probably size on size so  i got to use a little bit of force to get the   bearing in there you can see how this all fits  together now we've got the we've got the swing   arm on the right we've got the shaft where it  hinges on that gets pressed in i think inside   there i got some bronze bushings if i can remember  here's the markup of the frame you can see that   some parts have been braised and in other  parts like the top tube going to the seat tube   it's not brazed yet so i'm just this is called a a  mock-up stage where i'm just kind of figuring out   if things are fitting do they need to be modified  or tweaked very slightly and this photo here   is a close-up so you can see all the different  pieces that go into it it is kind of complex it   took me a while to figure it out so next we got  the stabilizer bar i don't know the real name   for this i call it a stabilizer bar because it  keeps the seat tube in the middle of the stays   that's why it's so wide at the front so here's the  piece which the arms get welded and brazed onto   so i use the file and i rounded it it would be  hard to do that roundedness in a manual lathe and   i rounded it because that's what a casting would  have looked like at the time this here is a part   of the arms there's an arm on each side and this  is a bending jig which i made up and i'm going to   heat it up and i'm going to bend each of those two  arms the arms are bent i've cut off the ends and   i've i've tig welded them on and you can see how  that first piece that i showed you it's inserted   over the stabilizer tube we'll call that a  stabilizer tube i've got it set up in the on   top of the of the down tube now it's held in the  vise and you can see i'm even using a spacer block   and some masking tape and these are the bushings  where it has to pivot and so i'll do a little   tig tacking there then i'll take it off and i'll  braise it you can see now it's brazed it hasn't   been filed up at all it's just it's got the flux  on it still that's what it looks like when you   soak it in hot water the flux all comes off that's  when you can really see what the braze looks like   because the flux it tends to hide but once it  comes off you really get to see how good your   braising is or not so good and that's the finished  product i'm pretty happy with how that turned   out and then it'll get a little bit more sanding  and then it gets sent out for nickel plating and   it's electroless nickel plating and it you  they only put on either three tenths or half   a thou it's a very very thin coating but it's  really durable and it gives a beautiful finish   i started out with a couple slabs of bronze you  can see it's mark 954 and i was wondering if it   was going to be a strong crank so i i looked in  the specs i got my metallurgy book out and i found   out i was a bit surprised 954 bronze has the same  tensile strength as chromoly 4130 so i thought wow   that's kind of cool so you can see here now i've  got the i've got the holes here this is for the   that's where the bottom bracket spindle goes and  this is where the slot is going to be for the   petal and i've roughed out a shape you can see  hacksaw marks around here it's in the mill i'm   i'm taking off some weight i've got my face  mill here it's got carbide inserts i've got   an end mill i'm cutting the slot uh that's  for where the petals go and then i needed to   make a little relief there for that's where the  nut goes so it sinks under the surface a little   bit so i've got a fly cutter here it's on the end  of a boring bar and i go back and forth with this   single point tool and i make a relief so you can  see this what what stage i'm at here now i need to   need to take off some on the sides so because i'm  not sure what kind of a shape i'm going for yet   because in the photographs it's really hard to see  exactly what's going on it's it's got black paint   over top of it and so i milled down the sides and  it definitely looked better but i decided that i   wanted a radius here so i needed to do that and i  didn't know how to do that on the mill so i got my   porting tool out it's got a carbide burr on it i  took a felt pen i marked the felt pen line right   down the middle and then i put a radius on either  side of my red felt pen mark and then it was just   a lot of hand filing just to make it smooth and  and to get that kind of a radius so it's a radius   this way and it's a radius that way and then i did  a bunch of sanding and that's the finished project   i was really happy with how they turned out i  would say if i had to if i had to choose a wood to   describe them i'd say they are handsome i needed  to make a pair of sprockets i had the blockchain   this is the blockchain came from england and it  took a little while at this stage i realized that   i had to do some more calculations and i had  to figure out exactly what size and and root   diameters that kind of thing underneath on this  photo you can see a ruler so the ruler is kind   of showing the length of the chain stay because  i have to know what the center to center is and   i've also figured out how many how many teeth i'm  going to have in each sprocket i've got nine teeth   and i've got 18 teeth so i've got that all  figured out and so now i need a piece of metal   so i went in my in my bin and i found some half  inch plate you can see that it doesn't look   anything fancy at all it's just it's actually  hot rolled because it's got the scale on it but   that was how i started i used an end mill you can  see the end mill here i've got this on the milling   machine this is the rotary table and i figured  out how much of a cut i had to make this obviously   didn't happen in 15 minutes i figured out what  kind of a cut i made how far how deep i had to go   and then when i came out the also the angle so i  i would get the teeth at the correct shape so that   took a little bit of figuring it was very handy  that i chose a sprocket with 18 teeth because then   i got my three jaw chuck i got the jaws reversed  so they're outside so i've got one jaw every six   six teeth so that worked out really good so i took  off some weight in the middle i bored the hole   i put it up in the mill and i used the hole saw  and the hole saw cut out out the lightning holes   after that the hole saw leaves a little bit  of a rough surface so i used a boring bar   made a smoother hole and that's what the sprocket  looks like it's not finished yet because i still   have to put on the holders that hold the crank on  i took some steel it looks like inch and a half   by inch and a half and i cut out this shape and  i know that right now the shape isn't making a   lot of sense but you can see how it's got a hollow  there so that hollow this is this is this is where   the crancom goes and i'm making i'm making two of  these so out of this shape here i get these two   pieces and that was a little bit of a challenge  figuring out how to make those i did a little tic   tacking i got the spacing right i put a crank  arm in there i did a tic tac and now what you   see here this is silver solder there's quite a  large surface area in between these two pieces   so silver solder was the best way to do it i  didn't have to use as much heat as nickel silver   and i didn't want to tig well they didn't have tig  welding back then and that's what it looks like   with the nickel plating that's that nickel plating  i told you about that's probably about half a   thousand nickel we've got the big sprocket done so  i also had to make a small sprocket so you can see   it's definitely smaller it's nine teeth somehow  i needed to get a free wheel into this sprocket   this is a freewheel on the left and it's a bmx  micro drive it's a very small small freewheel   it's a 14 teeth so i needed to fit the free wheel  into the sprocket the first step was to board out   so it's this size is about the od there nothing  not including the actual teeth and then i held   it up in the on the rotary table in the middle i  took an end mill and i i cut out 14 little little   recesses because that's what's going to hold the  teeth of the freewheel see how it fits i had to   i had to radius each of these each of the teeth  because the teeth had to fit right in there and   this was the final step i made up a upper cover  and i held it on with five little allen screws and   you'll notice that the spacing is not equal and  that's because there is five screws and there's 14 teeth in the lathe i got some bronze and it's  not the same kind of bronze as the 954 it's   more common i don't know the number of it but  it machines a little bit easier but it's still   fairly strong i made up a holder this holder here  it's a piece of alloy and it's bored to the exact   size of the flange so i can hold it really tight  and i don't put any marks in no chuck marks on   this side and tapping the hole that was a whole  other thing because a spoke is two millimeters   and then when they roll the thread it becomes a  2.2 millimeter thread but if you try and buy a   tap i don't think there's any in the world you  can buy a two millimeter tap you can buy a 2.5   millimeter tap but they don't make a 2.2 and the  2.5 is way too sloppy for the spokes so i ended up   using what's known as a 356 tap that's kind of  close and the spoke is still a little bit loose   but it's not as loose as a 2.5 so that's pretty  nerve-wracking drilling very small holes and then   tapping because if the tap breaks you need to  start all over again so being very very careful it's the same sort of thing i started with  a block of bronze and i started machining   you can see here i've got the shape  what i'm doing now is i'm putting   on the threads here and the threads  are going to be where the freewheel   threads on and then i made up a holder so that i  could hold it because i've got extra bronze out   here to hold while i machine so i needed a holder  up at this end i cannot just hold it on the thread   i've drilled all the spoke holes and tapped them  that worked out so now i'm cutting off the excess   bronze this is in the band saw i'm holding the  bronze in a drill press vise i'm finishing off the   other end i'm i'm boring for the for the bearing  then i'm going to add some shape here as well here   it's got the freewheel on it and it's mounted in  the rear stays of the frame nothing's painted yet   and that's what it looks like radial spoking  back in 1888 they had everything back then   this is the piece that goes onto the handlebar  and i made it out of two pieces of metal i made   it look look like a casting this is where the  brake lever hinges or the pivot is there's a   bolt that goes through here obviously  this is the handlebar i cut it in half   so and i put it on because the id is the same size  as the handlebar basically and you see how it's   got a radius on the bar i can't slide it on so  i cut it tic tacked it and then i braised it   all up and filed it up so once the paint goes  on there you can't tell this is what i started   with it's a huge piece of metal it's about  three quarters of an inch thick and maybe   inch and three quarters across you can see i've  got a cardboard shape in behind here so i cut a v   on the bandsaw this is my arbor press and i've set  it up here and i've got a heavy piece of flat bar   on the bottom i've got spaces i got c-clamps this  is the ram and now i've got a i'm going to add   some heat to it that's my big tiger torch and i'm  because that that's a fair chunk of metal that's   going to take some heat for sure mission mission  successful you can see the heat still in it and   it's bent it got got the bend i want otherwise  i'll be starting with a huge piece of metal   huge so this is the easiest way for me to  make it out of one piece of metal and not   weld it in the middle i didn't want to do that i  wanted one piece so i took it to the mill because   when i when i bent it it kind of bulged out on the  side so i've flattened it out now with a face mill   this is my cardboard template i've got my my  machinist blue you can see the scribe lines   so next i'll be heading over to the band saw and  you can see out of that one piece of metal this   is the brake cleaver in the middle that's that's  the shape that i want no it's a huge heavy piece   now so i've still got a lot of metal that has to  be removed so i put it on the mill and i used a   ball end mill 5 8 ball end mill and i milled it  out but then i took my high speed grinder and i   got a cartridge roll and that's when i can really  make this shape smooth and i can count it you can   see here how it has to come back a little bit more  so i'll do that with this spiral roll i've taken   a hacksaw i've cut down the sides so now i've got  a lot of grinding filing and all that this is all   done by hand i think this brake lever i think  it was either one or two days work probably two   days work just to get it all all cut this is  the brake lever i've got it held in my lathe   because i need to machine the end the end needs  to be rounded and it needs to be tapered so i kind   of like this shot of the brake lever in motion  spinning and that's the finished lever it needs to   get nickel plated now but yeah you can see how the  end is round here and then i i scooped it as well   so that was that was fun making that brake lever  never done anything quite like that i need to   make a seat post now so this is the clamp that  gets made out of bronze this is 954 so this is   the really strong bronze didn't need to be but  i had had that bronze lying around so i used it   so i've got the two holes drilled for the seat  rails and now i milled out the inside i've got a   an arbor that's mounted in the chuck and then i  bought the bronze onto that and i i cut a taper   down but i i can only do so much on the lathe  i've got to do some hand finishing as well so   you can see here how i've got a rough shape these  are the those are the same size as the seat rails   and i've got the bottom piece i've  done some phillip brazing in here   and this is just a nice piece of tubing that's the  right size and that's what it looks like when it's   finished i was really happy with the shape how  it turned out i think it it's got a good flow   to it i found out that the whip it was made in  london england there was a company and there was   two partners i think they're called l b something  and i guess every bike was handmade back then and   i don't know how many bikes they made i think in  the world today there is maybe a dozen of them and   they're really rare i've never seen one all i've  seen is is photographs and drawings in books so   basically i made this off of out  of photographs off of photographs   we hope you've liked our episode on the 1888  whippet full suspension if you like it if you   subscribe that'd be great if you bought us coffee  that would be that's the best mitch and i like   good coffee there's a little link below in show  more i know mitch will probably pop something   up on the screen thank you very much have a  great week we'll see you next time stay safe you

Channel: paul brodie

Views: 203,676

Keywords: headtube, jig, fixture, frame building, framebuilding, steel, tig welding, tig, welding, lathe, metal work, metalwork, mill, filing, bicycle, custom, oxyacetylne, oxy-acetylene, brazing, rod, nickle silver, 1888, whippet, handbuilt, handmade, show bike, nahbs

Id: 2fcjAwloUrE

Length: 35min 34sec (2134 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 05 2020