Starting on rack building
I finally made the plunge and bought the equipment necessary to braze racks out of steel. I spent a lot of time asking Alistair, framebuilding members, and random people at NAHBS what I should buy and finally ended up getting a Victor Superrange II. The torch is a little bigger than ideal, but the price for the whole kit was a lot cheaper than putting together my own kit with good regulators and a smaller airplane torch. The included regulator was also compatible with propane (I’m using Oxygen/Propane instead of the more common Oxygen/Acetylene). I also bought a Ridgid 3/8″ tubing bender, stocked up on files, and ordered a bunch of tubing from Aircraft Spruce.
The first project is a handlebar bag rack for my Trek road bike. It has caliper brakes and I’m not crazy about the common designs for racks that would fit.
Tonight I got home and built the platform:
It’s not perfect, but it’ll be perfectly functional. I messed up when measuring the platform and was off by about 1/4″ where it the two ends of the outer tubing join each other. I brazed in a little filler piece of tubing to make it work. The joint isn’t perfectly smooth, but I think it’ll be okay after I sand it out. The perimeter of the rack is made out of 3/8″ tubing because that is what works with my bender, but I’m using lighter 5/16″ tubing elsewhere. Click the picture to see more photos.
I’m excited about building some more and finishing up this. I think my second project will be a good lowrider rack for my Bike Friday, the stock one is terrible.
Lessons learned so far:
- Measure carefully when making the perimeter for a platform
- The flux that Henry James sells is much nicer than what I picked up from the local welding store. I can’t wait for my HJ order to arrive.
- Measure more carefully when trying to make things look balanced. My middle-stay is slightly off center.
I was about to email you about this very topic, based on your questions to the Frame forum, when i found this post. Making racks seems like a great entry into brazing bike parts (though still not cheap), and i”d like to give it a try too. Any info you can post on the equipment and experience will be very helpful. Thanks!
Hi Alex,
I”m curious what model ridgid tubing bender you ended up getting. I”ve long been interested in brazing racks, and already own an ancient Victor Oxy-Acetylene torch. I”d like to buy a good tubing bender and was looking at the various ridgid ones and they make several 3/8 inch ones.
Thanks!
Alex:
Thank you for the blog post. When you said on one of the lists that you were going to learn brazing I thought to myself that we would all benefit from your experiences. Now I see that I was right.
How are you going to mount the rack to your bike with caliper brakes?
Justin
Dan: I”m using the Ridgid 506 tubing bender. The Swagelok bender for 3/8″ is another good choice.
Justin: The rack mounts behind the brake caliper using a small piece of plate that sticks up and bends forward.
Bill: I”ll do a followup entry showing the tools that I”m using for rack building and giving a cost breakdown. It isn”t cheap, but it is cheaper than building frames and also more approachable due to the lower material costs and the shorter build times.