An Electrical and Engineering student has created his own lightweight bicycle using aircraft steel and by using resources available to ECE students and with oversight from ECE staff.
With a desire to learn fabrication skills, electrical engineering major Blayze Ashurst aims to build his own human-powered vehicles, such as velomobiles. At the beginning of this bike project he said he had no experience with welding or machine tools like mills and lathes.
Reid Rouse, an engineer with the Department of Mechanical Engineering and supervisor of the department’s student machine shop, assisted Ashurst in the project with valuable input. Ashurst also credits his peers in that department with helping him along the way. The machine shop is open to all students, staff, and faculty of the University of Utah.
Training is provided via modules, available on the department’s website. “Following training, students are welcome to work on academic projects during open hours,” Rouse said.
Ashurst purchased 4130 chromoly steel from a company that sells lightweight steel tubing for aircraft applications. He used resources at the J. Willard Marriott Library for the bikecad model. He said he made some tweaks for wheel size and width to ease the fabrication task of the airless tires.
The welding and fabrication work was performed at a local makerspace called Make Salt Lake. Rouse also teaches machining at the nonprofit space, including a manual milling machine class, in which Ashurst was a student. Reid calls the space “an incredible resource for makers of all interests and abilities. It’s also an incredible accumulator of engineering talent.”
Make Salt Lake provides its members with access to tools like lathes and mills for a monthly fee, and it offers a discount to U students. The shop also offered lessons on TIG welding.
Squeezing in time on the weekends, Ashurst says that performing machining steps like coping tubes took a while to learn. “The welding of the frame itself took about one month after all the tubes were placed in the jig.”
Ashurst brought his incredible passion for bike building and learned and grew in the process of instruction and fabrication.
He says he has taken his finished bike out regularly, including on some biking paths in the Salt Lake valley.
