Motor Bicycle Building Book 4 FREE!

GoldenMotor.com

Crazy Horse

Dealer
Feb 20, 2009
1,153
3
36
USA
Yes it's free online in multiple forms, I'll post a Link and you can have a free copy!!!!

Why is it free because the patent is expired or non-existent


Book Title: Motor Bicycle Building, 1906, Authored by Paul N Hasluck 1854-1931

A hundred years ago, if you wanted a motorized two-wheeler / motor assisted bicycle then you built one yourself.

This American publisher, Lindsay Books, specializes in new and old titles for experimenters, inventors, tinkerers, mad scientists, and a very few normal people… Their introduction to this book says:

'Here you get a free online copy or reprint of a very scarce book from 1906. Back then if you wanted a motor-bicycle, you had to build one. From scratch! Here you get the details on building a 3-1/2 hp engine (3-1/2" bore x 2-1/2" stroke) around which you build a bicycle frame. It's not speculation. This is a motor bicycle that was actually built and probably terrified the local gentry. Most of the book deals with the castings that form the joints in the frame, and the fabrication of the engine itself. And that means lots of detail in fabricating the piston, connecting rod, muffler, points, cams, valves, spray carburetor, ignition coil, and all the rest. If you were sharp enough to build the engine, then you were expected to know how to adapt wheels, handle bars, brakes and the usual other components from a standard safety bicycle of the era. This was a multi-part construction article that appeared in "Work" magazine (British) at the turn of the 20th century.'

Motor Bicycle Building, 1906, authored by Paul N Hasluck. So what do you do with a book about building a motorcycle from scratch? You give it to a man who builds motorcycle components from scratch, and ask him to read it!

This book is a gold mine of information for anyone who is into the maintenance and restoration of vintage motor-bicycle frames. A reproduction of a 1906 work, it really shows how time marches on and how things change radically over the years.

There are details of how to make frame castings and -- to demonstrate how things have changed -- it states in the opening pages of the book 'thousands of workers possess sufficient skill to make their own patterns and work up the castings from the instructions given in this handbook'. I seriously doubt, nowadays that there are more than a thousand pattern makers in the world and also I don't think too many people would be able to 'work up' the castings without a great deal of trouble! Except for guy's like ( JIM Manic Mechanic / Creative Engineering ).

If however you have the ability to use a milling machine and have the desire to spend a lot of time final shaping something with a file then it would be possible to replicate some of the frame castings in mild steel, although by the time you got all of the bits finished you would be sick of the sight of a file... There are some that would be impossible to machine internally, such as the rear and front fork crowns, but I suppose you could make them from solid, provided weight was not at a premium.

Looking at some of the tubing sizes and section shapes I doubt whether all of them would be available today especially the D-section and oval section tubing, as well as some of the round tubes. No doubt if you were wanting to make a frame then you would probably have to get the nearest metric equivalents and adjust sizes of the castings to suit.

The description of the brazing of the frame is fairly straightforward but it leaves me full of admiration for those who actually made such a machine with the equipment available at the time. Most of the brazing would have been done with a blow lamp, probably of about four pint capacity which would have been difficult to use and tiring to handle. It also leaves me wondering how many riders suffered possibly serious injuries, when the brazed joints they thought were OK didn't take properly -- and the frame subsequently fell apart when on the road.

One thing that I found strange, considering that this book is about self construction, is that it states at the end of the section on frame building .' The frame may now be filed up and sent out to be enameled and plated.' I would have thought that hand painting would have been the order of the day for the person willing to go this far with the project!

The 3½ HP four-stroke engine described is delightfully primitive, having plain bush main bearings and big ends, cast iron piston, inlet over exhaust valve arrangement with an automatic inlet valve. The valves are truly primitive -- being made from plain steels or mild steel stems with a separate cast iron head. Again reliance is placed on one's ability as a pattern maker to be able to reproduce the cylinder casting. This is an extremely complex casting that would cost a small fortune to get the patterns and core patterns made. Most side valve engines made up until the early 1930's had an all-in-one cylinder and head casting, making it near impossible to machine and shape from a solid. This I believe would make it beyond the scope of all but the most determined and wealthy builder.

However I do believe that if you had an old cylinder casting from a vintage machine of similar design that was in good enough condition to be used, then the remaining parts of the engine could be adapted to suit to enable you to reproduce a working replica of a vintage engine.

If I were to build such an engine then I would recommend making things like the exhaust valve and the inlet valve from modern materials that are better equipped to withstand high working temperatures, and consequently last much longer than the original ones would have.

From the description of how to make not just the engine, but all parts of the motor bicycle, it is evident that the author assumed his readership had a degree of workshop skills far higher than the average that exists today. This would probably have been considered normal one hundred years ago.

Looking at the crankcases, it would be possible to machine this from solid billet and finish off by hand, although there wouldn't be much point if you hadn't got cylinder castings. This would require a sizeable lump of 10" or 11" diameter bar that would cost you a couple hundred dollars or so at today's prices.
First, cast your frame lugs...

Given the right workshop facilities all of the other components for the 3 ½ HP motor appear to be within the scope of someone with a reasonable amount of experience under their belt. I was surprised, given the primitive nature of the engine that a surface carburetor was chosen rather than the spray type. The description of the spray carburetor is very good and should you need one for a very early vintage bike the design here could be adopted to your needs.

There is a section that goes on to describe various ignition systems opting for the Trembler coil type ignition. As far as I remember the Trembler coil is a low tension type of ignition system that, although good, will not reliably produce sparks at higher revs so died out with the passage of time as engines became higher revving than they were in the early days.

I must confess to having a dislike to all things electric; whenever I tackle these things they end a dismal failure, however the description given in the book seems relatively straight forward though I doubt seriously one would be able to procure a lot of the items described and modern day alternatives would have to be chosen. This would probably be better anyway as insulation materials such as epoxy resins would probably be better than paraffin wax as recommended.

This more or less covers the book's contents apart from the description of a clip on motor for a bicycle frame that would be of interest to some of our motorbicycling.com forum members. Again this is a similar design to the larger engine described but would prove difficult to replicate unless you happen to know an extremely skilled pattern maker who would make you a set of patterns for the cylinder casting.

All round it's an interesting book but one that would be of relatively little use to anybody who was not into early vintage motor bicycles. You might not want to actually build your own motor cycle, of course - in which case reading about how it was done a century ago could be a fascinating way to spend an evening…

Motor Bicycle Building, 1906, edited by Paul N Hasluck has been reprinted by Lindsay Publications. It's a softcover of 160 pages and normally costs around $11.

Or you can Click here on the Link for the FREE copy:
http://ia331303.us.archive.org/2/items/motorbicyclebuil00hasliala/motorbicyclebuil00hasliala.pdf Or Click here for main Link: http://www.archive.org/details/motorbicyclebuil00hasliala

Peace Crazy Horse.
 
Last edited:

silverbear

The Boy Who Never Grew Up
Jul 9, 2009
8,325
670
113
northeastern Minnesota
Yes, it is interesting and I've just blown a couple of hours looking through what I will never do personally, but marvel that others have. Just think of the time and effort involved but also try to imagine the sheer joy when the engine came to life for the first time and propelled the rider on his hand made motor bicycle. Amazing.
I was amused to run across Whitworth screws and 'spanners'. As a young man my first car build was a 1952 MGTD British sports car. I knew nothing, but that didn't deter me. I got the factory shop manual and figured out that the bonnet was the engine hood, the boot was the trunk and other strange to me terminology. I was stuck on the brake repair however when a certain sized spanner was required for the job. I had no idea what a spanner was and called around to auto supply houses for one. No deal. I finally decided to wing it and figured I could use a wrench instead. Years later I learned that a spanner is British for wrench. Ha. Thanks for sharing this. I wish I could have shared it with my grandpa, long gone, who was a very fine machinist and made tools including a type of hydraulic jack hammer valve for which he received a patent(well, Hertzog Wonder Drill got the patent and he got a bonus which is another story)... for a man with a third grade education and one of sixteen children that was pretty good. I looked at the diagrams and thought of him, knowing he would understand far better than I. So thanks for the book and for the time with my Grandpa kinda lookin’ over my shoulder.
SB
 

meowy84

Member
Jul 18, 2009
239
0
16
Canada
Thanks Crazy Horse. Interesting stuff. I just skimmed through it (planning on having a more thorough reading later) but I already see this would probably have been quite an advanced book for the time. Only a selected few would have been able to actually complete the entire build, definitely not the average home tinkerer in my opinion despite people's hightened ingenuity in that era. Notice for example the carburator. That is a fairly advanced piece for the time. I have a vintage 4 volume encyclopedia of automobile/motorcycle/speedboat/train construction from 1907 and they mention a simple surface evaporation carburator where the fuel simply is metered drop by drop into a chamber with a metal "coiled ribbon" to provide surface area for evaporation and once in suspension the 'mixture' is sucked into the engine on the intake stroke. If this motorcycle build was intended for the average do-it-yourselfer it probably would have suggested a carb of that type and maybe even a hot-tube ignition like some of the simple single cylinder engines of only 3 or 4 years before where a burner heats a metal rod that is secured into the combustion chamber and this serves as the ignition for the fuel. Mind you the valves that have the head screwed on to the stem seems almost too primitive as one-piece valves were almost the norm at the time and in any case compared to some of the other necessary machinings required by the build would have been not a very difficult job at all.
 

Egor

New Member
Jan 30, 2008
714
0
0
Hurricane Utah
I would sure be fun if I had the wherewithal to do a project like this, and do it complete just as it is described. I love it making your own condenser. Have fun, Dave
 

LouieMCman

Member
May 28, 2010
137
4
16
GA
Great reading, thanks for the link. I passed it on to the antique MC guys many of who could actually build something so sophisticated, not me though...
 

Crazy Horse

Dealer
Feb 20, 2009
1,153
3
36
USA
Hey everyone I'm glad to see that many of you are enjoying this book, this thread is generating a lot of interest in motor bicycling's history!

Peace Crazy Horse
.
 

weekend-fun

New Member
Jun 21, 2009
999
0
0
San Carlos CA
If I had the big three (time,money, and patenice) I'd totaly do this. Exept I'd rather not build the motor on my own. I couldn't do that. It gives me a headache thinking about it.


Sam
 

Crazy Horse

Dealer
Feb 20, 2009
1,153
3
36
USA
GearNut, you are very welcome enjoy it the free book of Motor Bicycle building, and don't forget to share this book with your friends!

C.H.
 

hemichargersrt8

New Member
Dec 4, 2010
4
0
0
London, Ontario
Hello all, first time posting. I found the book very interesting. I have studied the details and to most it would be hard to visualize the 2D CAD pictures. So, I converted them to a 3D model using Solidworks. I only have the motor done so far, but I am working on the frame details as I type. I can provide 3D pdf or if you download a CAD viewer I can supply files for your viewing pleasure. I have tried to include as much detail as reasonable but I have left out some nuts and bolts etc. You can pan, zoom etc and make the parts transparent so that you can see the internal parts.
 

Attachments

silverbear

The Boy Who Never Grew Up
Jul 9, 2009
8,325
670
113
northeastern Minnesota
Pretty cool. Some of us have trouble making breakfast, let alone a motor. I found that book fascinating. And my long gone machinist/inventor grandfather would have loved your screen captures and been amazed. When I looked over the book I thought of him and how much more he would see than I did. He was from that "I can make anything" generation which loved machines. You have to admire those early guys for there audacity to think they could make a motorcycle, not assemble, but 'make'. You're doing a good thing here.
SB
 

caduceus

New Member
Feb 4, 2009
173
0
0
Frostbite Falls, MN
Thanks for the link!

Sorry Sam but we didn't have them fancy schmancy CNC machines back in the early 1900s. All you get is a hand powered drill, a tape measure, a hammer and an assortment of files. laff
Add a couple of good cold chisels, a vise, an anvil, a small forge, a good set of grippers (pliers) and a basic assortment of wood-working tools for making jigs and patterns and you've got a pretty nice setup for a Blacksmith's shop.
 
Last edited:

hemichargersrt8

New Member
Dec 4, 2010
4
0
0
London, Ontario
I couldn't agree more. I am a true romantic when it comes to the turn of the century inventors and builders. It simply amazes me what these men and women did to further our society. As far as "mechanical machines" I feel sorry that I think our best years are behind us. Not only were these machines functional but also often a thing of beauty. Now days, designers seem to think "form" is more important than "function".