Happy birthday Technochicken

Happy birthday to the Mcguyver of Techspot :wave:

A belated, Happy Birthday, Technochicken

Thanks everyone! It was a good one.

I'm not actually old enough to have seen that show while it was running, but thanks to the wikipedia article on it I sort of understand what you mean

Hey it was a compliment! I bet you could make a machine gun out of blender parts! and who carves a pumpkin like that!? :haha::wave:

I have not tried making that kind of weapon yet... maybe that will be my next project. Here's a teaser of my current project by the way:



As of today it has a more carbon fiber on it than it did in that picture. You can see the roll of CF in the bottom right corner- all 5 kilometers of it!

okay hold on here. need a little commentary. I see a bamboo bike, how does the carbon fiber come into play? looks really cool though "Techno Dean Anderson".

The joints will be wrapped in a carbon fiber-epoxy composite. I am using CF tow, which is basically the string that is woven into carbon fiber cloth. Supposedly bamboo has great ride qualities- it absorbs bumps better than pure carbon fiber bikes, but is still stiff and light enough to be pretty fast. Some people use hemp fiber for the joints, which is easier to work with, but carbon fiber is just plain awesome.

okay, i get it. so how are you going to finish of the CF joints for aesthetics? or is that not a concern? and how did you come up with this idea? its really unique.

I'll probably do the CF in a matte finish, as I'm not really a fan of the high-gloss look. As for where I got the idea, there are a few companies who make these commercially, albeit for thousands of dollars each, and a number of individuals have done these as well, so I'm not even close to the first. Probably the most famous commercial maker is Calfee Design: http://www.calfeedesign.com/bamboo.htm

So then is it a resin type of filler (like fiberglass) they use to end up with a joint like this?

That one just uses hemp fiber and epoxy instead of CF and epoxy.

How long does Bamboo last in that type of application before it fails from fatigue?

I would guess pretty long either way, bamboo has a really high tensile strenth of about 1000lbs per square inch. That thing looks cool already.

It should not fail from fatigue for a very long time, as long as you take care of it and don't leave it out in the rain. Apparently it is more crash tollerant than steel or aluminum as well.