Building update September

Hello,

I was a bit lazy with maintaining this blog.

No posts since two months.

But, because I was not that lazy in building, there's a lot of progress.

I have built the front hood, the steering system, the front brakes, pilots drivetrain

 and spent several hours refining the bodywork.

The front hood

Fenders painted and Banshee as test payload

My front braking system is somewhat odd

The alum tube which goes through the hole is the steering column

and the front brakes are operated by pulling the handlebar/column back

Front part of drivetrain

Looking inside the left side box with the two idlers at left

 and the jackshaft at right side

The jackshaft 

View to the rear wheel

And finally I was able to drive the velocar, although barely
Just minimum eqipment: Pedals, chains, front brakes and a handlebar.
No shifting cable yet,so I shifted the NuVinci hub to slowest gear directly at the hub interface.
The slack side of the chain is still not exactly aligned with the frame holes where it goes through.
You can hear it rattling loudly, the hollow plywood frame behaves like a guitar corpus.
So, no speed trials today...
Just testing the suspension and turning circle, which is - by the way- impressingly small !
Next steps are proper seats and door locks, these clamps are going on my nerves.

And please excuse the bad quality video, it was just recorded with the cell phone

 

Future color scheme

Hello,

Christian, a guy from the local steampunk community made some color simulations for me.
Quite useful, I think.
Better than paint it first and hate it afterwards.
He also suggested to change the grille from oval to a horseshoe shaped one.
Now it looks more like a Bugatti or Morgan.
My wife just giggled, when she saw the photo, so I have to go for it.

 The curved windshield is also suggested by him, but the real one will be a bit higher.
His website

Bordeaux is our favourite color now

Bugatti blue is on second place

British racing green is another option (for one of the next builds)

I'm still thinking about a 2 tone scheme, all colors above can be combined with creme white.

So, looking forward to my next steps...

Front fenders

Hi folks.

Currently I'm working on the front fenders of the new velocar.

First step was the making of a side panel in the projected shape,

then glueing curved girders, which meets the sweeping lines of the panels perfectly.

This time I had to glue a much tighter bending radius, than ever before.

(front half of the fenders)

A dry batten would break if bent so hard, 

so I used boiling water to make them flexible and that worked perfectly.

Next tricky step was the unrolling of the front and top panels of the fenders.

These are bent and curved in all directions,

but again it was easier than it seems.

Now all panels are dry fitted and ready to be glued together.

This will be done tomorrow.

As always a few pics, showing the steps of my work

 Side panel cut out and screwed in place

Aft part of the fender tops

 And finally the front panels cut out and dry fitted.

Now the "face" is almost ready built.

I still have to decide the design for the cowl and grille.

My inspiring examples are these two great cars.

 Jaguar XK120

Delage D8 Aerosport Coupe

Cheers

Old & New

Hello,

Here are new photos just for fun,

to give you an impression of the differences

 There's still some work on the new velocar...

Kai

Critical Mass Berlin

It's nearly two years now,

since we joined a Critical Mass.

This time we made it to Berlin, 

to take part in one of the biggest events of this kind in Germany.

We started at noon, with the velocar strapped down to the bed of our transporter.

Due to the very hot weather,

we interrupted our journey to Berlin for a few hours

 to take a swim with our kids in one of the countless lakes around Berlin.

At 5 p.m. we finally arrived in the central city, just south of the Tempelhof airfield,

which we also wanted to discover.

It is closed for air traffic since a few years and opened to the public instead,

so it's now the biggest recreational park in Berlin.

On the runways we saw lots of people on skateboards with surf sails on it, 

some were pulled by kites.

The greenfields in between were filled with many crowds, who enjoyd grilling, playing music 

or simply relaxing in the evening sun.

At the east end of the former airfield a group of enthusiastic people has build up a public vegetable garden, open to all who are also interested in planting their own food.

We rode for an hour up and down the runway with the velocar 

and took some photos.

 Finally we leaved the park 

to make the last three kilometers to Mariannenplatz in Berlin-Kreuzberg,

the meeting point of the Critical Mass.

Starting time was at 8 p.m.,

we arrived nearly an hour earlier.

Just a few people were waiting at this time around the place,

so we wondered, how this can be such a big event.

But after 45 minutes the picture has drastically changed

There wasn't a real starting sign,

after some time the mass of riders began to move slowly into one direction.

And I have to say again, VERY slowly.

The street was so jam-full of bicycles,

the first minutes we were barely able to cover 100 meters or so.

This was the first bicycle-caused traffic jam of my life !

Then, the mass stretched, the rows cleared somehow and 

off we went.

We saw lots of stylish fixies, all sorts of soundbikes, trailers, tandems

 and self built cruisers.

At 10:30 p.m. we leaved the crowd,

taking care of our two little girls on the back seat.

I'm still editing some video stuff,

hoping to include it here soon.

Cheers

What is a Kinneri?

Hello,

Kinneri is the old Finnish word for pedal cars or velomobiles.

 Some years ago I found an old drawing of a Kinneri,

which is one of my favourite plans for a one seater replika. 

 This example seems to be very similar

I don't know, who was the constructor of the plans, 

nor do I know more about the beautifully built example above.

Both photos are taken from this blog.

Most likely the drawing appears in one of the numerous magazines for self builders,

which were very polpular in the 1950s.

Several vehicles were built, some of them were restored nowadays.

Here is an article about a nicely restored example.

The photo is taken from the blog.

Back to the drawing above:

While I like the lines and shape very much,
 there are some details I want to change.

For example I want to equalize the size of all wheels,
to reduce the number of spare tubes/tires when underway.

I'm also concerned about the rolling resistance of  small wheels, 

especially on the uneven roads I drive frequently.

 So I decided to use 24" wheels, 

trusting the experience with my velocar.

I also lengthened the entire vehicle to fit my size (I'm 189cm/6'3" tall)

including a slightly lower seat position and a more horizontal backrest.

I prefer a bloody simple construction 

just like the original.

This includes the sliding pillar suspension for the front wheels

(Morgan style).

I just added a rear swing arm.

Now, this is what comes out so far:

And again the original drawing for comparison:

My falsification is not accurate in all aspects.

It was made only using copy, paste and stretch.

My intention was to create an inspirational drawing, 

which I can roughly follow for a future project.

Redesign datas:

Length: 300cm

Width: 105cm

Height: 75cm

Seat height: 25cm

Wheel base: 190cm 

Cheers, 

Kai

Last weekends ride

Hi

I want to share a few pics from our last ride with the velocar.
This time we drove to Naumburg (by car) to join a small but beautiful steampunk exhibition there.
There were lots of self built steam engines, all of them able to run,
steampunky computers, useless boxes and other funny stuff .
A Mendocino-motor leaves me head-scratching.
Imagine a rotor without anything around...
Luckily the builder was so friendly to explain the principles to me.
One artist brought his steam powered pets, a rat, a turtle and a beautifully made drageon, able to move almost his whole body.
Also at display was a steam powered bicycle.
The engine propelled the front wheel via a wooden friction wheel.
The builder explained, he is able to cover 5 kilometers in flat terrain, before the boiler runs out of steam.
We were also invited to drive a few circles with the garden train, which was - what else - steam powered.
And all that entertainment was offered for free.

After the exhibition we discovered the picturesque valley of the Saale river with our velocar.
We drove from Naumburg to Bad Koesen and back, always alongside the river.
Because of its sunny microclimate, some of the northernmost vineyards in Germany are situated here.
And of course a lot of small taverns and restaurants.
So we took the opportunity to taste a glass of wine.
Sweeter than I suspected...

All in all we had a great sunny day,
lots of interestig things to see,
antique buildings in a beautiful landscape
and a glass of wine.

What else could you want?