Agilo velomobile

Bodo Sitko has told me that I can show you the first construction photos when the roof goes on, a German tradition I hear when house building. We will have a roof party for our velomobile too :giggle:

And that should be within the next 10 days. I can't talk about the velomobile but I can still talk about me ;) I am not disappointed! In fact I am pleasantly surprised. Because I have a motor and various other parts my budget is much lower than on the web site. Building time is as estimated.

My agilo will not be on the road until February 2021 at the earliest, that is when I will have saved enough to buy all the commercial made parts. That is of course very disappointing, I hoped to use it through this winter. My request for second hand/used parts here on the forum are without success unfortunately. I thought about selling my trike to finance the parts but I am still very much in love with it, I am using left over agilo aluminium to fabricate a trailer hitch, then it will become my daily driver. Other than that I have no solution so we shall all just have to be (very) patient.
 
An apology!

The roof could go on next week but after a test fit of a body panel it is just to big to live with me in my living room until I save up enough money to finish it. The naked chassis is not going to stop light coming through the window and is still narrow enough to let me have people over for diner etc. A full velomobile is quite a bit bigger...

Project on hold until sufficient funds allow me to finish it in a timely manner.
 
So to cheer you up... Bodo Sitko has told me I can publish the photos of the work done so far, this week I will have finished a complete chassis.

Disclaimer: The notes that follow are my own subjective opinion about Agilo and building one:

- I have never driven a vélomobile, I ride a recumbent trike however.
- I studied industrial design for 2 years so I have some knowledge about materials and material strength
- I have been building things from wood since I can remember and I built my first boat when I was 12 years old. Since then I have built many more, how many? I don't remember, so a lot.
- I am Agilo builder number 1 so as I work through the plan and I find small bugs I am transmitting to the designer for correction
- I paid for the plan, I think that is an important point to remember if I seem too enthusiastic at times

salon-workshop.jpg

I am building in my living room and sanding and cutting done on the terrasse (16 m2)

Tracing the plans to the wood took about 10 hours.

outside-workshop.JPG

Cutting all the parts took about the same time - I can only work outside in the morning and if it isn't windy or raining.

pile-of-parts.JPG
 
Of course when the parts are cut and sanded I present them for a test fit before gluing

presenting-pieces.JPG

Then the first gluing session begins. I used West System Six10 cartridge epoxy for assembly and am using a local epoxy for fillets and gluing larger areas + coating.

six10-epoxy.JPG

Some parts glued

ready-for-epoxy.JPG
 
I am also posting to the French forum, here are a few more


both-wheel-wells.JPG

seat-mockup.JPG

on-the-building-plate.JPG

As you can see I can't have a velomobile in my living room and a life...

side-front.JPG

The storage space until February
storage-space.JPG
 
Did you do something to the plywood, to get it around those sharp bends? It is looking good so far. I can also see the stiffning structures in the velomobile and on the wheelwells.

It must not feel good to put the project on ice, but sometimes, you have to. I have shut my builds down when it gets to cold in the garage for the epoxy. I would get in to trouble with significant persons in my household, if i would laminate in the living room. :whistle:

Great progress so far!

Greetings, Jeroen
 
Back in the old days we used to steam bend wood:

- long tube closed at both ends with the strips of wood inside
- pressure cooker connected by a pipe to one end, vent at the other
- ...

Of course the glue didn't mind damp wood back then, all wood was damp, epoxy does not stick to wet wood unless it is a special formula designed to harden under water.

Here the wood is soaked in water, warm water helps work faster, for a time you have to calculate after doing tests on a sample piece. The first very tight bend I broke the piece, that isn't a problem I repaired with fibreglass. Now I get the bends done with little effort other than massaging into shape over my thigh with my hands. And I have a bending rig which you will see soon when I publish some more photos. I let the piece dry which is easy in my climate.

You should never soak okoumé in water! But that is the only way to bend okoumé ply. Dilema! As long as you let the wood dry before gluing then encapsulating in epoxy you will be fine, you must encapsulate in epoxy because okoumé bent this way will behave very badly if it ever gets wet again. Trust me! Aesthetically the fibres lift up so you have to sand before applying any coating.

Poplar is much easier to bend, a poplar Agilo requires much less soaking, some parts I have to soak Bodo bent dry.

I built a boat in my living room, it is one of the advantages of living alone. Never build a boat in your living room! I will never build another boat in my living room :rolleyes: When people ask my girlfriend and I why we don't live together she replies "because he builds things in his living room"...

3 more pieces to glue in before the pause. Of course I will be building the swing arm in Octobre ;) More photos soon.
 
Ihr werdet beide glücklich, wenn sie antwortet: "we live together, because I can build things in our living room"...
 
Did I ever mention the Milan spend 6 month in my living room? :unsure:
Currently, its occupied by half a trike waiting to get finished (dropped the rear frame for nickel plating today).
 
I presented a body panel and the bend at the nose can be done almost completely with dry wood. That reassured me a little. You just have to take your time and develop the technique or... use poplar. In fact I would use both okoumé and poplar to build next time: bent pieces in poplar and flat pieces in okoumé, that will result in more strength and lighter weight.
 
Did I ever mention the Milan spend 6 month in my living room? :unsure:
Currently, its occupied by half a trike waiting to get finished (dropped the rear frame for nickel plating today).

Trikes don't block the sunlight as much as the Milan as you have noticed and the seat is very comfortable for watching a film on TV (tested...) :giggle:
 
Here is my very sophisticated bending jig:

- 1 euro pallet
- one nail box
- wood
- clamps

Like all boat builders I have lots of clamps, boat building rule number one - you can never have too many clamps!

bending-jig.JPG
 
I assume you still just show us a few details of your well documented production process. Therefore I propose that the Agilo staff should pay you in the end, due to your knowledge of boat building which you apply for their DIY-VM-manual.
Keep on with the nice work!
 
The knowledge I am bringing is the first version built in okoumé plywood which I chose because i have built many boats from it over the years (and it was all I could find in 3 mm locally). Some things are quite different from the poplar that the prototype was built from (okoumé doesn't bend easily). That is the only thing I have brought to the manual - the okoumé specific things - everything else is exactly like in the building instructions.

I would pay triple myself just because when you search for a plan to build your own HPV (hybrid) on a very limited budget you find... just this one! That is priceless, and if I can help in any way to have even more home built reasonably priced HPVs and encourage other designers to do the same as Bodo Sitko, design more DIY velomobiles then I will.

I studied the plan and building instructions for about 3 weeks before my wood arrived, along with @fan-dan we have been constantly analysing and discussing over the last months what could be done better or differently - result, a head out version was drawn, and i decided to built exactly to the original plan. The plan requires good to advanced wood working skills. I have found very few problem spots so the plan was very well thought out by someone who knows plywood.
 
Hi @anotherkiwi :),

I assume you still just show us a few details of your well documented production process. Therefore I propose that the Agilo staff should pay you in the end, due to your knowledge of boat building which you apply for their DIY-VM-manual.
Keep on with the nice work!

(y)...

Sounds like to be easy, I'm in doubt. How the yield is to be divided fairly within a production community is very important but may be considered controversial, especially in the long term. More consensual maybe: A chain is as strong as its weakest link.

So if - just for example - the sale( people, too ... ) is wrong ... Without marketing( eek ) on board, it becomes -- extremely difficult would be wrong -- simply impossible. In the medium to long term, it turns out whether marketing aspects( aka some concrete PEOPLE ) were taken seriously from the START. Just my2ct for the last point ...

Another Point: Personally, I consider anything but strict equal pay for everything & -body( even eg. theory & praxis ... ) to be counterproductive. Furthermore there is a time of prototyping, and a time after time ...

... a probably extreme point of view, just a sideview perhaps, anyway, ... most likely OT! SO: Beg you pardon@TO! Plz!

<eof OT>

Seriously spoken, really somehow just wanted to say: Awesome Project! Just Great! :love:...

Very best rewards!
Christian
 
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