Buggy Building

If you`ve ever wanted to build one and haven`t; you just have to dive in and do it. Plenty of great youtube videos on welding. Get some extra metal of the type you plan on using. Chop it up and practice joining it together. Weld two pieces together and hammer it over to gauge the strength of the weld. Take a metal cutting bandsaw and saw through the weld and examine it. That`s how I got my machine dialed in. Also the chart with the starting settings on the door of the machine. Weld with the recommended settings; then try the setting above and below that. Then you will know what it's like when the settings are not correct.

I've wanted some different(higher) side rails for a long time. Finally dropped the $90 on the pipe bender.

A bit daunting at first; but you just have to make that first bend. Now that I have bent some pipe; if I do up another set; I won`t have any hesitation and will be more callous about throwing some pipe in there and bending it up. Nothing to it.







(and yes; I have to use a ` in the place of the correct punctuation mark in order for a post to show at all. Pretty sure the text input situation with the forum is killing the forum because people can't post and don't know why. When you click post or preview and your post is blank.. Real downer when that giant post disappears for good. Only took once and now I copy the post to the clipboard before proceeding. I dumped windoze long ago. Both Apple desktop and mobile are no go in getting a post to appear with a apostrophe.)

Nice work!!!
I see you changed the angle of the 2 plates to swan neck connection. This is a tricky area to set up with an angled downtube on the swan neck, as if you change the length of the buggy the ground clearance/seat angle alters.

I prefer a back rest on my buggys for long distance cruising and I'm getting on in years.

Built 5 buggys so far and own 2x Sysmic 2's. One on Midi XL tyres and I use the 12" wide Beach racers on my local beaches with my other Sysmic.


A great way to get the bends correct and the same on both rails is to measure down from the top of the frame of the pipe bender to the die (while it's still under pressure you can eyeball across the top plates of the bender and see the measurement on the ruler that's end is resting against the die) with a steel rule or caliper and use that measurement on both side rails. This way you can remove it and redo it again if it's not enough, as you have an original reference (even if it's only a rough one)

Great for making repetitive bends all the same, as the same measurement makes it a simple job to achieve the exact angle every time and allowing for the springback in the material.

This works a treat on thin tube too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlSnVSrWg0M&feature=rela...

For smaller tubes I tape one end fill it with water and freeze it and then it can be bent round a mandrel with out any collapse of the tube.

PS; I love your method of tyre removal too!!!!:D

Still looking for some cleaver ways to do a clamp on back rest.

Nice job on the buggy
I didn't know about the problems you mentioned regarding posting. I just thought everyone opted to use faceplace and mybook and all that. I remember when 3 pages a day under 'todays posts' was common. Now 3 posts is the norm. Sad

Let us know how the first test ride goes