8th August 2022 - Name day!

What’s the picture? And what is a name day? I hear you ask. 

Well, according to https://www.namedaycalendar.com/nameday-meaning- 

A name day (also known as feast day) is a tradition in many countries in Europe of celebrating a day based on an individual's given name. The custom originated with the Catholic and Orthodox calendar of saints, where believers, named after a particular saint, would celebrate that saint's name day. In many countries, however, there is no longer any explicit connection to Christianity

So why am I writing about it here? Today is the 8th of August. And if we were in Finland or Estonia we would be celebrating all Sylvi’s and Sylvia’s. If this is your name - Happy Name day. 

Well obviously it is not my name day, but there is a reason for writing about it here. All will become clearer shortly. 

Today I've headed back round to the Beamz workshop to see some willow slowly being crafted into a bike. 

My bike! 

My bike, that somehow already has a name (not sure how that happened as I’ve never named any of my bikes). So, as you may have guessed by now, 

a. I have ordered a wooden bike from BEAMZ and 

b. Her name is Sylvi. 

And what better way to celebrate her name day than to investigate where she came from? 

Nick very kindly showed me the place where he harvested the willow that will make up a substantial part of Sylvi’s frame. The bush is coppiced - chopped to near the ground which encourages new straight growth. If you look carefully at the second picture, you can just spot where a stem was removed.  You can also see lots of very straight stems coming away from that cut area. It is hard to sense the scale on a photograph, but those branches were already my height and the willow had been cut less than a year ago. This is what makes these bikes so sustainable. The wood regrows within 8 years, locking in lots of carbon in the process. 

I had been round a few days earlier to see the finished jig that Nick had been making in the last post. It was strange to think that the ball of hemp would, at some point, become an integral part of the bike too. 

Nick handed me a beautiful piece of willow, explaining that I was now holding Silvi's top tube (crossbar - in old money) It had already been steamed and stripped of its outer layer, leaving a beautiful pink tint, and there was a hole that had been drilled through before it had been dried. Of course, being a natural product, the tube wasn't quite straight, but this bend was one of the reasons Nick had chosen it for this purpose. 

Our next job was to hollow out the tube - reducing the weight, but keeping the strength of the beam. Nick showed me a cutaway so that I could see how the tube would look on the inside.  

As with everything in this bike-building process, Nick had designed and built the tool needed for this job and it was a work of art in its own right. I watched as the router took away the core, while the guide wheels ensured that the tube retained the same thickness throughout. I was mesmerised. Zoom back to the very first photo to see the end result. 

On my next visit, Nick had a different bike set up on the jig. This one has been ordered before mine, So was slightly further ahead, but many of the processes are being done at the same time. 

Carefully scaled printouts of the CAD design are used to give the correct angles and measurements every step of the way. With the tubes held tightly in the jig, the ends are cut to exactly fit the diameter of the bottom bracket shell and the head tube. 

The next job is to make the chain stays, these are again willow, that is specially chosen for their shape. These are held in another purpose-built jig, ready to have the tops made into dowels that fit into the bottom bracket shell. Of course, there is no standard drill bit for the job, so Nick just designed and made one!

The next stage was to cut the other ends with a slot that would take the aluminium dropouts for the rear wheel. This again was all guided by the printout below showing exactly which measurement was needed. 

With those completed, all that was left to do was drill the holes in the bottom bracket shell ready to accept the dowels. 

My next visit proved to be quite spectacular. It was time to make the dropouts. It felt like some sort of righting of the universe that these would be made from recycled, broken, Audi alloy wheels. I've been smiling about that ever since. 

First, we needed a ‘pattern’. This was carefully cut out of a piece of foam and was not as easy as Nick made it look. I had to have a second attempt at mine when angling the knife made one of the lugs too narrow. 

Some sections needed to be extra thick, but not the 6mm that the main part was made from. No worries though. Nick had a machine that precision cut the foam to 3mm. It’s amazing what you can do with a heated wire and some milk bottles. 

The patterns were complete, they just needed a cardboard funnel on the top and we were ready to go. 

I’m not sure that we should have chosen the hottest day of the year so far to be smelting aluminium, but so be it! 

The pattern was ‘planted’ into a plant pot of sand, the pot was then filled and shaken to ensure that the sand had filled all the crevasses. The lid was just there to stop sand from falling down the funnel as this would need to be removed before pouring the molten metal. 

Aluminium has a melting point of 660 degrees centigrade, which is a lot hotter than your average camp stove. I was keen to see how Nick was going to melt these cut-up pieces of Audi. The process proved quite simple. A large crucible was placed into a plaster-lined bucket. This was packed out using lump wood charcoal. This was lit and superheated by an electric heat gun. Within 10 minutes the coals were red hot and the molten metal glowing orange. It was time for the pour. 

Then another agonising 10-minute wait for the metal and sand to cool before revealing the final piece. This piece was for the other bike as it needs an extra lug to attach a trailer. 

This is one of Sylvi’s dropouts after a bit of a clean-up but before the final machining. 

The next cast was an experiment. Could two pieces be cast at the same time? Again the patterns were made but this time joined together at the top with more foam. And it was back to melting metal and burying foam in the sand. 

It worked!!! 

Front dropouts are all cast, ready for separating, a quick clean up and then a final machine to make the important surfaces level.  I can’t wait for my next visit to see the next stage in BEAMZ cycle production. 

Thank you Nick and Sarah for your constant patience with me wanting to photograph or video everything, and then answering all my silly questions. It is always a joy to pop by. 

For more information about these wooden bikes, take a look at the BEAMZ website 

All photos and videos are my own. The wood is kindly provided by Mother Nature and the aluminium by drivers who think their cars are invincible. 

Keep an eye out for the next instalment. If you want to be notified about future posts - click here. (I apologise now for the adverts that come within the notification email, I have no control over them) - ignore them and just click the link in the mail to get to the latest post. 

Thanks for reading, now go get out on your bike.