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diy bike front or rear racks materials
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2024
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bike wrench
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A place to ask bicycle repair questions, and for bike shop monkeys to share advanced non commercial wrenching resources (no YouTube self promotion). This is only for repair related topics.
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If you want it to be easily repairable (you mentioned this in another comment) I'd go with small diameter aluminum tube and a very very good radius bender if you can AC tig weld, or stainless steel (maybe 316?) if you can only do DC tig. The reason for this is because neither option "requires" paint, though the aluminum does benefit a little from paint. Paint makes everything harder to repair (assuming the repair involves a welding process) because you have to grind it off again if you break something or want to make a modification.
Also, I totally get wanting to make things. My hobby projects are normally zero percent about saving money and 100% about having fun. Most things I make in my shop would cost about 1/4 of the price if I just went to the store and bought them, especially factoring in time and consumables.
EDIT: I suppose this comment really gives away what region I live in lol
in my experience going to the store almost always costs more (but then again I only make simple single material stuff that dont require crazy equipment) To give this rack as an example, steel front racks are going for 100eur++ (check those surlys lol) and for what I want (which needs someone that mades custom racks) will easily go above 200eur.. (the plan is to make it with at least half)
for me its not just the fun.. the reasons are mainly ideological. (making, repurposing, reusing over consuming)
This gave me an idea. Have you considered buying a used higher quality rack and modifying it? Might save some time and get you what you want with less new material, and sort out some of the harder parts to fabricate because they'd be done already, possibly only requiring a little bending to align with your eyelets. Plus you'd be saving something from someone else's scrap pile.
Around me there are a few community run used bike part shops. They typically have lots of racks and other parts kindof organized into piles or boxes by type. I can usually find something close to what I need if it's not too specific.