Budget Chopper Bicycle

Step 6 Construct the forks (part 2)

OK, now we have our two fork tubes which are welded to the steerer tube / crown.

Next we need to make a top plate which will clamp everything together.

We will re-use the cardboard template we made previously to cut out a shape in sheet steel.

Now we need to mark on the sheet steel the centres of the two forks and the stem bolt.

I'm using 10mm bolts so I drilled 15mm holes at the fork centres, and about 10mm hole for the stem bolt. It doesn't matter if the holes are bigger than the bolts, we'll be using washers when we assemble it.

Picture 1 shows the drilled top plate.

Picture 2 shows the plate bolted to the top of the forks. (Ignore the clamp that the bolt is holding - we'll discuss that later)

Summary - we've now built our forks. Our tubes are welded to our base plate, which in turn is welded to our fork crown. We've made a top plate and proved it fits OK by bolting it all together.

Picture 3 shows the bike assembled with our forks. Well, the forks look OK, but we'll have to seriously modify the frame to make it rideable.

Next step - the frame.