After years of struggle, scratches and damage transporting bikes in the back of his van, my Dad garage-built a bike rack to solve this problem. After years of multiple friends complimenting the DIY solution, in September 2018 we bit the bullet and "launched" our prototype to the public at the Cycle Show. After hugely encouraging feedback and support, months of hard work followed developing the prototype into a real product and brand.
In December 2018 my Mum, my Dad and myself sold our first BikeStow bike rack.
Now, we've outgrown our garage and are taking on the biggest leap since our launch - moving into an industrial unit. This journey has been incredibly humbling and overwhelming, thanks to our customers. Learning new skills & meeting new people - all for the love of the process.
I'm currently studying Product Design Engineering at Loughborough University, but every spare minute in-between I spend working on BikeStow.
Nice work! Glad to see you have enough sense to use a circular path for the full width slotting, rather than cutting the squiggly path the whole way like most youtube machinists :) After that I use vertical motion to clear most of the material between teeth, and then a single rough squiggly pass followed by finish pass.
Everything is cool! You are well done! Please tell me! I have a self-made CNC, its accuracy is 0.05 mm. Will this be enough to make such a gearbox? Is it better to order on professional equipment? To make, for example, 0.01 mm. I'm thinking of using aluminum bronze to reduce friction
I'm an engineer, and most of these video show machining (milling)? Why do you have the cutter stuck out as far as you can? The tools should be as short as possible and not like a bore tooth hanging out.
Hi George, A friend Max has a three bike rack off you for his Peugeot expert, I have the Peugeot Part Tepee. It has a 60/40 Isoflex back seats, once removed there is a step down where your feet would go. Has anyone asked if your rack would take a road bike. I'm looking at the two bike system, look forward to your reply.
Hi Peter, I believe we've had someone in the past construct a simple plywood floor / ledge which bridges the gap and stepdown when he removed his seats in a similar vehicle, ensuring there is a nice flat surface for the BikeStow rack to sit on. I would suggest something similar! In terms of road bikes, the rack takes them no problem at all. If you look at our website, there are plenty of photos of both road and mountain bikes being used. Cheers George
Would be great if this product could be fixed to the bulk head and pull out towards the back doors for use! Can it or does it have to fold back towards the bulk head?
It has to fold back towards the bulk since the rear panel is shorter than the front panel! If it was the other way around, then fixing it to the bulk head would work. It is easy enough to fold it up, lean against the bulkhead and strap it in place though!
guys command do I skip line? I have a 3.8 slot and the cutters sometimes come in the right size 3.8 but if they come smaller I put the second pass, I wanted a command to skip this second pass. help me please.
Can I know what controller you use? Is it Mach3 driven? I am having an issue where my machine is losing steps on the Z axis when doing parallel cuts. Every hardware seems nice and tight. My theory is that when it end a pass in the X direction and go .1 mm in the Y direction to begin a new pass it is not responding fast enough to the Z change and it is missing a step. You can notice the bit going deeper and deeper as it goes further in the Y direction. Should I try feed optimization or turn on the CV controller on Mach3?
Absolutely love your story. Was made aware of the product through Paul at Criterium Cycles, and hopefully should be making a couple of purchases from you in the near future. 👏🏼
Great video mate! Do you know what class of surface roughness is achievable with that kind of 3D surface milling before polishing? Is Ra=3.2 a good guess? :)
hi, i have the same cnc, mine is 3x2 meter but its the same model, can you help me to insert it in fusion 360? or can you link me a guide to do it? thanks, awesome video, keep the good work.
A beautifully thought-out, designed, and manufactured piece of work! Sadly, my cycling days are long gone. :o( Thanks for another clear and informative video. Liked & Subscribed.
They're just standard 16mm toe clamps! Bought as a set www.rdgtools.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?WD=2477353&PN=FIFTY%2dTWO%2dPIECE%2dSTEEL%2dCLAMPING%2dSET%2d%2d%2dFOR%2dUSE%2dON%2dEQUIPMENT%2dWITH%2d16mm%2dT%2dSLOTS%2d2477353%2ehtml#SID=139
As with the main bore, the 9mm holes were machined, measured, and tool comp adjusted if needed so the 0.015mm H7 tolerance was fine, just took some checking and adjusting. Being some one-off parts that wasn't a problem - but if production, reamer would've been more reliable.
I hope they look after you when the machine plays up, My machine cost half of its value in downtime but seems pot luck with where your are in UK as to whether you get an engineer in a day or 2 or like me a week after breakdown and a month to change spindle
