The latest unicycle handle
I’ve been using my newest unicycle handle for quite a while, and I’m really happy with it. I’ve designed it to fit my geared KH24, and I want to make a newer version that fits on my carbon fiber seatbase for my geared KH36. Maybe I’ll get around to it sometime soon, but for now, here’s the existing one.
Side view:
Top view:
top view detail of front bar ends, with brake adapter. The brake won’t fit on the bar ends, so I created an adapter:
The close bar ends are my “power grips” for climbing steep hills and riding rough muni. I made a special V adapter than can easily be removed, allowing a traditional plastic handle to be used instead:
View from front:
All the places that bolt together are simply small pieces of steel that I brazed onto the tube. I then drilled it, tapped it, and cut the slot to allow it to clamp tight:
It is built from cromoly steel tubing. 22mm diameter (perfect for bar ends). All brazed together, which is *plenty* strong (I tried to brake some of my older brazes with a hammer. It bent, but never broke off).
The basic handlebar and bar ends adds only 11.6 oz (329 grams) to the weight of the unicycle (without the brake adapter piece).
Handle alone: 6.5 oz
Bar ends, long: 5.1 oz (hence, 11.6 oz for the basic setup)
Bar ends, short: 5.6 oz (they are a different brand, and are heavier than the short ones)
Brake adapter: 1.6 oz
V-close bar ends adapter: 2.6 oz
Total: 21.4 oz, 1 lb 5.4 oz – 607 grams (EDITED – I had got this wrong the first time I posted it. I learned how to add since then.). The bulk of the weight is the fact that I have *two* sets of bar ends, which I prefer A LOT more than the regular plastic handle. It allows me to climb steeper things with little effort, and is very ergonomic.
I can’t wait to get my milling machine. It is going to open up a lot more possibilities for things I can create.
Project Hutchinson: The carpeted upstairs guest room
The remodeling project continues! We ordered carpet after I finished painting the built-in dresser frames. Unfortunately it was a big ordeal when we went through Home Depot. the color and manufacturer that happened to make the stainmaster carpet we wanted had a two week lead time. No problem. Two weeks later they call us and said they made it but didn’t pass inspection. We figured that was okay, and just decided to stick with it. Two weeks further on they called again and said the same thing! So, at this point we picked out a different color/kind that was manufactured by a different company. A little over two weeks later it was delivered and installed.
The weight set sort of takes up too much room, but I’ve promised to start using it. True to my word, I used it the first day, and I was sore for the next three.
Almost all the drawers are done for the dressers; well, I have them all made, and I just have to spray the last four of them — I couldn’t do them all at one time since I didn’t have enough room in the garage.
How about a before picture for comparison:
I did everything myself, aside from installing the carpet. Except for painting the walls! Louise painted all the walls.
Before shot of the above area:
Well, I’ll still have to do the trim…but that can wait.
Before — there was a closet in the corner that I thought was ugly and removed. I rebuilt the wall and drywalled it:
That’s all folks!
My treehouse fell down!
Well, a few weeks ago it finally happened. My treehouse fell down! Well, not entirely; about 3/4 of the floor fell out.
I took a few pictures with my iPhone; I’ll probably be going back in a week or so to do more cleanup and scavenging.
Here’s a view from the ground, looking up at the treehouse. The sink is literally hanging by a thread (the pipes!):
A view from inside the treehouse:
Another view from underneath:
The floor fell down and rotated on top of the things in the treehouse:
So, what happened?
Well, a few weeks ago we got a lot of rain and wind; that was probably the pushing factor that made it fall out. But, the main reason it failed is due to a bad design. I knew the treehouse wouldn’t last forever, and I knew that I did some things wrong when I built it. In the end, it lasted for 9-10 years; I started building it when I was 20, and moved in when I was 21. In a few short months (April 13th) I’ll be 31. The design was flawed in several ways:
1. HUGE 24′ spans with doubled up 2×6’s (not quite as strong as a 4″x6″), with ZERO 45 degree supports underneath the house. I initially had put a few 45 degree supports, but my lackluster attachment made them not do much, and they eventually just fell down. Now, douglas fir isn’t made to span that huge of a distance, and was prone to have a huge amount of support weight on the edges.
2. Non-floating foundation. Ideally, I should have made metal brackets that would allow one end of the attachment to the tree to “float”. Since I didn’t do that, the movement of the trees was slowly pulling the house apart. It was particularly worse when it was really windy out, and it made the whole house creak really bad. NOTE to self now that I can weld: make brackets!
3. Built-in foundation. Instead of having some joists that the real floor would be built upon, I just built it directly into the joists. That works for smaller houses, but for larger treehouses it wasn’t a good idea. The floor acted like a torsion box, and probably flexed the worse at the ends.
4. Related to #2 — “tree on wood contact”. The edges of the 2×6s had two 6-8″ lag bolts bolted into the tree. The wood-on-bark contact never would really dry out, allowing it to rot slightly.
In addition to all those problems, the other kicker was that we recently stored a bunch of stuff in the treehouse, since we rent out the “big house” on the property and needed a place to store things. Unfortunately, most of that stuff got damaged when it took a 40′ fall and had the floor fall on top of the stuff to boot.
Oh well…lessons learned!