An Easy Welded Bike Hanger

We have three bicycles and limited space to store them. The gold man's road bike and the blue lady's city bike are both hung from a folding wall hanger from Lowe's. When I went to get another for the black man's road bike, they had a replacement I thought unsuitable. So, I decided to make my own hanger. It does not fold, but I never folded up those I bought earlier, either.

Step 1: Materials and Tools

The materials used were:

• A piece of steel fence post
• Two pieces of 1/2 inch concrete reinforcement bar 12 inches long
• Steel rod 1/4 inch in diameter
• Two lag bolts 3 inches long each
• Paint

Tools

• A welder (I used a flux core wire feed welder. I also heated rod for bending with a 230 volt welder and a carbon arc torch, but this could be bent with a good vise and hammer, too.)
• An angle head grinder with a cut-off wheel
• Measuring tape or rule
• Hammer
• Grinder
• Vise
• Drill
• Wrench for driving the lag bolts

The photo shows the end of the steel fence post. Notice the raised portion for hooking the fence wire to the post. I removed the rise and converted it to a hole for one of the lag screws. See the next step.

Step 2: Converting a Tab to a Hole

I used an angle grinder to remove a little more than 1/4 inch of the raised tab.

Step 3: Drive the Tab Down Flat

I had a piece of steel rod about 7/8 inch in diameter. It made a handy anvil against which to pound the tab back down into the opening from which it originally came. By pounding first from one side and then from the other, the steel rod is not really necessary.  Although not shown here, I welded the slits on the sides of the tab. I welded from both sides for a better weld. I ground the weld flat and smooth on the upper surface so the head of a lag screw would fit better. What remains is a hole about 1/4 inch in diameter.

Step 4: Position and Weld the Reinforcement Bar to the Fence Post

This was one of those projects I should have documented as I did it, but I thought it would not make a good Instructable. After completing my bike hanger and sleeping, I decided to create an Instructable after the fact. The photo replicates the setup for welding the reinforcement bar to the fence post. When I actually did this project, I had already completed the previous step above and I had cut the fence post to a length of about 5 1/2 inches.

I had also rounded the end of the reinforcement bar to fit the contour of the fence post. I welded the end of the reinforcement bar to the fence post. Although there is some paint on the fence post, my flux core welder dug through it. If I had been using a MIG welder, I would have needed to remove paint where I was welding. 

I positioned a second piece of reinforcement bar exactly as the first, but from the other side so the two together make an "X." I welded them together where they cross. A later photo will show that more clearly.

Step 5: No Level Top Tube

The gold man's bike in the Introduction photo has a level top tube. But, my wife's lady's frame does not. I improvised by cocking the mounting holes on the hanger. One hook on the hanger holds the bike frame where the left seat stay joins the seat tube. The other rests under the top tube on this lady's frame. With my angle finder from a recent Instructable and a short piece of straight lumber, I determined I needed to cock the hanger 11 degrees. I built this angle into the inclination of the hanger arms on my custom bike hanger. See the photo in the next step.

Step 6: Bend One Arm

I bent one piece of reinforcement bar downward so that it is about 2 1/2 inches lower at its end than the other bar is. This allows the wheels to be level when the bike is hanging on the wall. The bend is just outward from where the pieces of reinforcement bar cross one another and are welded to each other. 

I also have a 230 volt stick welder with a carbon arc torch I made for it so I can heat metal to bend. 

Step 7: Bend and Weld the Hooks

I bent 1/4 inch rod to fit around a 2 inch pipe. I welded a "C"-shaped piece to the end of one reinforcement bar. I made a tighter "U"-shaped piece to be welded to the end of the lower piece of reinforcement bar. After the hanger was painted, I worked pieces of clear plastic hose 1/4 inch in internal diameter onto the bent rod pieces. This will protect the finish on the bike.

Step 8: Mount on the Wall

I checked very carefully to be sure I drilled for the lag bolts so that they caught the wood stud in the wall and were not merely hanging on to a sliver at the edge of the stud. 

If the wheels are not quite level, it is not difficult to push one reinforcement bar upward to bend it a little and adjust the relative position of the bars. 

The second photo shows a close-up of the hanger holding my bike. Although the welding to the fence post does not include a piece for triangular bracing, this bike is light in weight and the hanger still supports it very well.

Comments

[arthur verburg]

hello phil, nice instructable. i made one like that for my bike, maybe one idea to hold some more weight is to attach a third bar and secure it above, ciao arturo

[Phil B]

Thank you. Your suggestion sounds good, although, as long as my welds hold, mine is every bit as durable as the commercial version I showed in the early steps. Certainly the diameter of the steel rod is the same, and the commercial version will hold a heavier bike.

[Bill WW]

I was surprised to see a discussion of a Stirling engine in an Instructable for building a welded bike rack! And it was flattering to see my name mentioned favorably by my two good Instructable friends.

Osvaldo's design document is well thought out and as usual his computer illustration skill is impressive. Yes, his project is ambitious. As I told him, if he succeeds, he should expect a phone call from Stockholm. However, as he proceeds with designing/building/experimeenting he may well create something very impressive. He is skillful and persistent.

I am continuing to experiment with Stirling engines. My solar powered engine this Summer turned out well - see it running in my back yard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsKVp6RvV34&feature=plcp

My next design failed (last week), now I am now on to another design.

I like your bike rack; we hang our bikes from the ceiling.

[Phil B]

Instructables is a little like Facebook. A person easily becomes lulled into thinking this is a quiet conversation in a corner between friends; but, in reality, the whole world is eaves dropping. There is a saying in German: Die Wände haben Ohren. (The walls have ears.)

Your ability in Spanish is impressive. I have no knowledge of Spanish, but I admire anyone who can use a second language, especially if he can use it well.

Thank you for your comment. I hope all goes well with your prototype engines.

[Bill WW]

Phil, I have almost enough Spanish to communicate with Osvaldo. However, we both have found Google Translate, but I am not sure if it helps the learing process.

[Phil B]

About 20 years ago I was listening to a lot of shortwave radio. Radio Canada International told about an earlier attempt to use machines for translation. There was some success with simple things like weather reports. But, someone fed the English sentence, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." into the translator to convert it into French. Then they asked the translator to turn that French result back into English. It read, "The drinks are good, but the steaks cannot be tolerated."

I occasionally send e-mail in German to friends in Germany. When I have questions about a phrase, I do an Internet search for that phrase word-for-word. Often the correct version pops up as a quotation in a document from a German language site. Either I am affirmed or corrected.

[sforget]

You don't have to only listen Radio-Canada International (RCI) to get that kind of bad translation. Use any web-based translator twice (per example, English to French to English) and you will get more than likely the same end results... and a good laugh.

Weather reports broadcasted in Canada are almost 1 to 1 translation. Meteorologists pick sentences from a list. Each of these sentences that have their match in French. A bit more logic have been added through the years (inverting sentences for better understanding...) on the system but that's about it. That way, an English or French meteorologist can issue weather reports without knowledge of the other national language. I'm pretty sure this is the same for any other countries that have more than one languages.

Knowing all of this, canned messages still have a great future for weather reports. :-)

[Phil B]

Thank you for the detailed background information. Do you live in Canada?

[sforget]

Yes I am.

My first language is French but I'm mostly working in English, providing support to customers all over the world.

So, I'm sure you can imagine situations where customers, trying to help us, translate their emails in French rather then sending them in plain English to make a bad situation even worse.

Even if the online translators made impressive progresses over the last years, technical stuff does not usually output as expected... :-)

[camberb]

Hi Phil,

I like your work!!

I had a similar experience with Computer translation. I was siting in the YMCA in the Panama Canal Zone in 1964, reading a Time Magazine. The language was English / Russian. The phrase used was the same one you saw. " The spirit is willing but the flesh is week. " When it was sent back to English it came out as " The Ghost is ready but the Meat is raw."

camber

[Phil B]

Thank you. I wonder what is so popular about this quotation of Jesus from the Bible that makes it a popular test for machine translators. Perhaps it is the idiomatic double meaning of both spirit and flesh understood well by live persons, but a challenge for a machine incapable of such subtleties.

[tkamsker]

if you need an german phrase send me the english one an i might be able to help ;)-
thomas

[Phil B]

Thank you very much.

[Bill WW]

That started my day with a great laugh, thanks!

[rimar2000]

Bill, I discovered an important design bug / flaw while making the prototype. That is an advantage of to work slowly. Now I am drawing the new layout, I will post it when done, maybe tonight.

[Bill WW]

Yo entiendo; tenemos bastante tiempo.

Estoy deseando ver a su diseño.

[msanders64]

It seems to me drilling a hole just 'above' the tab would be easier...is there any reason that wouldn't work just as well?

[Phil B]

It is your choice. This is what came to my mind. I thought my procedure gave the end product a more finished look.

[rimar2000]

Good work, Phil.

My bike weights a lot, and besides I have not a space on the wall to hang it.

[Phil B]

I think this would hold a heavier bike. The steel bars are almost 13 mm in diameter. In our case, the garage wall is the best choice for storing the bicycles. It is good to hear from you again.