Bamboo Bike Studio and Brandon Eng

June 30th, 2010 at 10:56am brandon

Ed: Brandon worked in the Open Studios at MAD with the Bamboo Bike Studio to create his own bike from bamboo. It’s not quite finished yet, but we’ll post photos when it is

It was a labor of love. Attaching bamboo pieces to make a bike frame turned out to be a laborious and beautiful process. Despite initial anxieties that I was perhaps not ready to be a creator, the actions required to bring something of utility and value into the world were laden with aesthetically memorable moments. I started out shaping the foam pieces that would act as joints between different pieces of bamboo. I began cautiously, but at Justin and Piper’s urging sped up and saw the shape within the foam. The tools of the trade were quite unfamiliar from spools of carbon fiber to two sides shaping files. My snail’s pace quickened as I felt the pressure of time.

Soon Josh showed me how to lay strips of fiberglass material over the curvatures of the foam joints. This required dipping them into a resin compound that heated in my gloved hands. To my great amusement, the resin would often begin steaming and the plastic cup would melt onto the table due to the exothermic nature of the reaction required to bond the resin to materials. Josh and Justin helped use sawdust to fill cracks between the foam pieces and the bamboo parts and the bike really started to look like their frames!

As Saturday proceeded apace, visitors streamed in an out offering advice and inquisitively examining our work. Some were aficionados; intimately familiar with the workings of bicycles they often asked highly technical questions regarding the performance capabilities of the bicycles. To this Josh and Justin often responded in kind while reminding their listener of the social aspect of their enterprise. Time and again the scale of their ambitions visibly left positive impressions on museum visitors and I felt honored to be a part of this force for change.

Sunday was the messiest day and I began the final structural step of the process; I had to wrap each foam and fiberglass joint in carbon fibers that had been dipped in the same exothermic cup-melting resin that into which I had dipped the fiberglass. Each spool was comprised of thousands and thousands of tiny black carbon fibers that would hold together the foam cores and distribute weight throughout the frame of the bike. Without careful attention the fibers would gently split themselves into many tiny hair-like fragments. Once covered in resin the tendency increased but even in its split form the carbon fiber was an incredibly gorgeous material. Justin and Josh helped me get the tough spots as I tried my best to cover every foam surface and unite it with the bamboo. It was the most labor-intensive step but also the most fun as my gloved hands were covered in slick resin and I pulled carbon fiber in all directions.

The weekend was an amazing experience, a great learning opportunity, and I enjoyed every part of it. It was great to be able to work at the Museum of Art and Design and with the guys from the Bamboo Bike Project. I wish them success in the group’s future endeavors. I’d like to thank Cathleen Lewis for organizing this and Josh and Justin for helping at every step along the way.

Entry Filed under: in the studio,teachers' lounge