Build a nice bike trailer out of a piece of electrical conduit and some old bike bits

Step 1: What You Need

Two bike forks
wheels for the forks
A piece of 10' steel electrical conduit that can fit (snuggly-ish)over the head of the bike fork. 1" conduit worked for me
A piece of thinner conduit, also steel. This is to make a brace or two
A sturdy piece of wood. I initially used a broomstick, which prompty shattered. A 2x3 worked (and is still working...)
Two old bike inner tubes. Get these from the dumpster behind a bike store, or your enemies' bikes

the plumbing pipes in the picture have nothing to do with the project--they're just living their lives, not bothering anybody, so I say, live and let live, right?

Step 2: Ways to Build It

I can think of three ways to assemble this, all of which would work pretty well.
The differences are how you attach the bits of conduit to one another.

You could:
Weld
Bolt
Lash with inner tubes

I used a MIG welder, because I wanted welding practice. If you wanted to bolt instead, every time I weld two pieces together, you would drill a hole through them and stick a bolt through it. You'll probably want to whack the conduit a bit where you'll be drilling to flatten it out.
If you're lashing, then just lash, man.

THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT!
If you're welding, be sure that you don't have galvanized conduit. Seriously--welding galvanized steel frees criminal molecules that had been locked up in their metallic prison, and the criminal molecules run through the air into your lungs and try to kill you. So seriously, don't weld galvanized stuff.

also, if you're welding, make sure all your conduit is steel. Otherwise it probably won't work.

Step 3: Bend the Conduit.

Take the 1" conduit, and bend it to make a
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kind of shape. There are several instructables on how to bend tubing. I tried to cheat and shape my tubing around a restaurant's oil drum, and ended up crimping it by mistake, but the conduit's still strong in the direction that it will get stressed.

Here's Ricketts, modeling with the bent conduit. It's really an ugly bend. I'm sorry :(

Step 4: Attach the Forks

Take your bike forks (keep the wheels off them for now) and stick them into the open ends of the conduit. Use your preferred method of attaching them. Take a second to make sure they're aligned with eachother, and that they're perpendicular to the ground.

Step 5: BRACE!

Use a hacksaw, pipe cutter, or grinder to cut a piece off the other conduit that will brace across your frame. Attach it near the wheels.
The picture's pretty self-explanatory, I think

Step 6: Lengthwise Thingy

Now, cut another piece of conduit that can run length-wise. This isn't very structural, but it's handy to attach things to them when you want to trail around.
Attach it down the center of the frame.

I made mine really long originally, thinking that I could use it as the tongue that attaches to the bike. Then I remembered that conduit can bend pretty easily and cut it off at the top of the frame

Step 7: Put the Wheels On

put the wheels on
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Step 8: La Lingua

The tongue is the piece of wood that will attach to your bike. You probably want 3 feet or so between the bike and the trailer, and then overlap a couple of feet (or more!) with the conduit running down the center of the frame.
Use a piece of inner tube to lash the tongue to the conduit.

Step 9: Attach It to Da Bike

Now, attach the tongue to your bike seat with another inner tube. Lash it tightly.

Step 10: Done!

sweet, you're done
Go bike around and haul things.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't trust it with a human's weight, but I used this trailer to carry my laundry to and from the laundromat, and also to shlepp 2 4x8 sheets of plywood a couple of miles, and it's worked really well so far.

Enjoy!

alex hornstein
http://www.artiswrong.com