Kalamazoo frame

I spent much of yesterday building the Kalamazoo frame.



It took most of the garage space to get it done.



It... ended up a bit bigger than I was imagining.



And much more solid. One of my design concerns was CG -- it needs to be operable with just a single driver. (I really want to be able to cruise around camp in it, offering the secondary pump position to those who are interested. Seems like a great way to meet people!) But that means I'll be standing pretty much directly over the rear axle, without no one weighing it down in the front. Accidentally pulling a wheelie in a handcar is an alarming thought! So I did an empirical test this afternoon. I placed spare 2x4s under the frame, and put the whole thing up on a bit of round steel rod as a pivot point about where the axle would be. I jumped up and down on the very end of the platform, and I couldn't lift the far end at all. And that's without all the mass of the pump arm, drive system and wheels. Wheelies: not a danger.

I think the next step will be working on the pump arm supports and some of the drive system brackets, all of which I'm hoping to forge myself out of 1/2" square bar, with some nice decorative flair. Which means I need to get my old forge running again for the first time in 3+ years, yay!