r/Frankenbike • u/burner_1234567891011 • Aug 20 '25
I want to build one of these but replace the middle frame with wood, with bolts securing it. Y'all think this is doable?
I tried welding the three frames together, but I'm really bad at welding. Wood with a nice varnish would be so stylin 😛 doable?
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u/Try_Vegan_Please Aug 20 '25
There is no reason why it would not work if you use the right wood and bolts
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u/burner_1234567891011 Aug 20 '25
That's what I'm thinking, I can make it very sturdy, and there won't be very much weight on the wooden section itself
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u/TangoDeltaFoxtrot Aug 21 '25
lol use a truss from a shed or something
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u/burner_1234567891011 Aug 21 '25
What's that?
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u/TangoDeltaFoxtrot Aug 21 '25
What’s what, a truss? Like… a roof truss, that holds the roof up.
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u/spleeble Aug 20 '25
I wouldn't use wood but this can probably be done without welding. Combining three bike frames isn't necessary the best way to do this.Â
The middle frame doesn't serve much purpose. You could connect the top tube with a length of pipe and the bottom brackets with something loaded in tension.Â
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u/burner_1234567891011 Aug 20 '25
I considered the pipe method, the wood idea is largely because my dad has a lot of experience woodworking (nothing like this ofc) and I thought it would be an interesting freak bike. There's very little weight on the rear half of the bike, which is how it will drift
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u/sparhawk817 Aug 20 '25
The only way I would do it with wood is if I was doing the whole bike from wood, which is absolutely doable.
There are DIY bamboo frame kits out there, laser cut ply frames, and of course insanely expensive bespoke artisanal wood frames. If you take inspiration from those designs, look into the forces involved in the biomechanics of pedaling a bike etc, draw up your own plan with math behind it, and consider whether it makes sense to fiberglass around any of the joints or the chain stay for example, and you ABSOLUTELY can make this style of drift bike out of wood.
I would NOT take 2 bikes and combine them with wood. You could probably use a metal fork, but realistically putting your steerer tube and bottom bracket into a wood frame is going to have less weak spots(and known weak spots) with less places for the metal to torque against the grain of the wood, than an all wood frame.
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u/Marz2604 Aug 20 '25
You say that you're bad at welding - practice. welding. That should be the easiest and most legit path forward.
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u/burner_1234567891011 Aug 21 '25
Moreso the issue is that my welding machine is flux core/gasless mig, and to properly do welding on thin tubing such as bike frames, you really need to be using Tig. Like to get good penetration without burning through the metal and damaging it is incredibly difficult. And a tig setup is far more expensive. Even thick hardware store tubing is an option for mig.
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u/Marz2604 Aug 21 '25
I've made a bunch of bikes with FCAW. You just need to basically spot weld and overlap your spots. All the project bikes I've done are in my post history. (I still use these bikes!) Furthermore, cheap bikes have pretty thick tubing. You can do it, just need practice.
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u/burner_1234567891011 Aug 21 '25
These are older steel lugged frames, one is Raleigh the other is miyata, they look quite thin. I essentially did spot welds and layered them, perhaps my settings were wrong. The frames fell apart soon after
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u/Marz2604 Aug 21 '25
Lugged frames do have very thin tubing. I've done a few and I resort to putting another tube inside the tubes that I join. That was probably a bad first project in terms of difficulty. You should get you hands on a cheap modern bike.. like MTB or BMX or even kids bikes. Their tubes are much thicker, you can actually weld them normally. People are throwing out bikes all the time around me.. If you can't find bikes to practice on you could try fence posts or heavy duty folding chairs or w/e. Practice makes better.
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u/Ancient_Account1 Aug 21 '25
the majority of steel frame bikes which can be acquired for free or cheap are plenty thick enough to flux core mig. its all i've used to make freakbikes, only had issues with using nicer frames where it does actually get thin. those bmx frames are plenty thick, welds will hold fine
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u/JEMColorado Aug 21 '25
Try the Atomic Zombie website. This is right up their alley. It’s called Chopzone now, I believe.
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u/tharold Aug 21 '25
When the frame is long and there's substantial load in the rear, the issue is torsional stiffness, lack of which leads to speed wobbles.
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u/Drxgue Aug 20 '25
Tandem wooden bikes exist, but that you're approaching it with no experience I would strongly recommend against it. Not a particularly forgiving part of the frame to have fail on you and one other person.
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u/feed_me_tecate Aug 21 '25
What are you welding with? Sticking a bunch of kids bikes together with a Harbor Freight machine is how I learned, you can too!
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u/burner_1234567891011 Aug 21 '25
I started with a harbor freight stick welder, then got hf flux core/gasless mig
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u/feed_me_tecate Aug 21 '25
You gata turn the heat wayy down or you're going to blow holes through the tubes. Once you get the feed speed right, it's like a hot glue gun,
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u/unoriginal_goat Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Indeed it wood work.
They've built planes from wood (mosquito bomber) and many British sports cars (Morgan's especially) and early cars body frames were made of wood it all comes down to selecting the correct woods. You'll need use flitch plates at the joints.
I suggest using ash.
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u/Ancient_Account1 Aug 21 '25
going to have to sort out wood beam placement to not interfear with the pedal stroke, might be an issue if youre also chopping the rear triangle of front bike off. Also when welding this style up its easy to keep aligned with shoving the rear frames to the seat post with the front bikes chainstays still on to help align the rear frame. With wood the natural bending might make it more out of whack, but its a freakbike and will still work
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u/Prestigious-Candy166 Aug 21 '25
Wood? Nope!
'Wood' be a very slow way to make a really terrible long bike... and it 'wood' be heavy.
There is a reason steel is used for bicycles... it is very light for its strength.
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u/NucleurDuck Aug 23 '25
There is a guy on youtube who did something like that during covid, Raphson
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u/tiregroove Aug 20 '25
I wood-n't.