{"id":597,"date":"2012-04-09T23:53:54","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T04:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amymakesstuff.com\/?p=597"},"modified":"2012-04-09T23:53:54","modified_gmt":"2012-04-10T04:53:54","slug":"treescooter-part-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amymakesstuff.com\/?p=597","title":{"rendered":"Treescooter (Part 2\/2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I meant to update part 2 forever ago…but here it is now!<\/p>\n

Last time I finished rambling about the deck and the fork. After that I started working on the folding and locking mechanism:<\/p>\n

First I wanted to give the base of the handlebars more material so that I could make a fairly beefy pivot joint for the folding mechanism. I could have found a big block, drilled a hole in it the diameter of the handlebar, and then glued it in. But I didn’t have a big block, so instead I chose to glue lots of smaller bits to the base to build into a block. In order to have flat surfaces to attach small blocks to, I started by cutting the base of the handle at an angle.<\/p>\n

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handle bars with the base angled<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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closeup of angle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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gluing on the first two blocks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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lots of extra material needs to be trimmed off<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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after trimming the first two blocks, gluing on two more, and then trimming those<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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here you can see all the blocks pieced together (minus the fourth one which went on top to build up the thickness more)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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rounded, with the pivot hole drilled<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next I wanted to make a mechanism that would securely clamp this pivot to the front fork. I really wanted to use a bike quick-release mechanism, but I didn’t have the right tap, and couldn’t think of an easy way to do it. So this is what I came up with:<\/p>\n

First, a bracket that goes on the front of the fork:<\/p>\n

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clamp bracket<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I found the curve of the front of the fork by shaping a popsicle stick, and then tracing the popsicle stick onto some 3\/8″ Al plate.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This bracket receives two threaded rods that go through the front fork. On the other side there is a latch that clamps to the back of the handle bar pivot.<\/p>\n

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(almost) full clamp mechanism (missing a lock nut in the top left corner)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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clamp and carefully drill two holes for the threaded rods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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the latch on the back of the pivot (the scooter is in the unfolded configuration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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unfolded, finished mechanism<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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folded<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

yes, these pictures are taken in a bathroom.<\/p>\n

About this time I took it all apart and applied two coats of polyurethane. I used spray on, high gloss, which resulted in kind of an orange peel texture. But the bark isn’t smooth anyway, and its something that I will step on with shoes, so its probably better to not have a perfect gloss surface.<\/p>\n

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finishing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally, I made a latch to keep the scooter folded. It makes it much easier to carry around.<\/p>\n

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latch to keep the scooter folded<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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lots of guessing and checking resulted in this cardboard template<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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drill a big hole. This is probably the wrong way to use this bit. A hole saw would probably also work great, but you definitely have to stop a lot or the plastic will melt.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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a big hole, 3\/8″ polycarb. Some pilot holes to help cut the corner radii<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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some bandsawing, filling, and a lot of dremeling later…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Soon I’ll post a video of my neighbor riding it (because I have no balance, and he does…).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I meant to update part 2 forever ago…but here it is now! Last time I finished rambling about the deck and the fork. After that I started working on the folding and locking mechanism: First I wanted to give the base of the handlebars more material so that I could make a fairly beefy pivot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,19],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amymakesstuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amymakesstuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amymakesstuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amymakesstuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amymakesstuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amymakesstuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amymakesstuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amymakesstuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amymakesstuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}