Building the chassis

[Deleted]

Hey i just wanted to ask .. Maybe a dumb question but could i build my trike based on wood ? I was thinking of trying it this way and then moving on to metal and hard stuff

[kolibri]

Hello fready,

Here are some pics of what I did to get an idea of the framesize.





And then turned to metal.



Cheers Ralf

[Deleted]

Hey Ralf,

i liked your idea i think ill try it thanks for helping out !

cheers !

[fiorano]

well the small motor and light weight you might get away with it,

[srx660]

Wood is a excellent way to get your dimensions and setup right, then make the frame out of metal. I'm doing that right now with the trikes i'm building. To build a wooden frame to use in the trike would end up heaver than metal framework if you are trying to build it strong enough for daily use. Ever notice that even the ford model T used metal for body and frames but did use wood to backup the metal in the body.

I built a wood frame gocart when i was 14 because that's all i had at the time, and i didn't have any money to buy one. Worked great for a few weeks. then things started springing apart. So i took sheet tin from junk cars and made plates that i could bend into angle shapes and drill holes thru so i could bolt the wood frame back together. Spent so much time fixing instead of driving that my dad went out to a local gocart shop and bought me a metal frame.

SRX660

[F3W]

Looks like a great start Ralf...wood frames have been made to be very sucessful...take the Tri-Magnum for example, it uses plywood panels covered in fiberglass and epoxy...though it may be constructed similar to a boat but that same construction method is also very similar to indy car design but they use carbon fiber panels instead...this method of building creats an extremely stong design that can is some cases be stronger then metal tubing, depending on how the composit panels are tied together and how extreme some angles might be.

I myself will be building my future body using this method...good luck and I will be following your progress.

Dave

[mtntech]

Using round PVC pipe (schedule 40) works great too if you want to mock up in round pipe.

[Deleted]

check the Morgan car not trike they were built with oak frames in the 1970s

[Liteway]

THE. BRITS DO LOVE their plywood and have used it cleverly. Check out the Marcos GT of the 70s. And the mosquito bomber of WWII.

[tryota]

I built a full scale wood of parts for mine to see how it looked and before I did it in metal.