BIKE RACK
One of my favourite hobbies is mountain biking, however it can be very expensive to get decent quality parts and accessories. One example of this is a bike rack that's used for transporting your bike around with your car. If you want a bike rack that's easy to use, holds your bike securely and doesn't damage your bike over time, then you usually have to pay a higher price. Because of this, me and some friends decided we'd make our own.
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To make it easy, our design mimicked existing bike racks on the market. The idea is bikes are held in a vertical position by the crown of the bike fork and the back wheel is tied down to prevent the bike from swaying and bouncing out of place. The fork and front wheel of each bike are held at an angle to allow for bikes to be mounted close together without interfering. The rack has two pivots, one at the bottom for adjusting the distance to the car and another in the middle for folding the rack in half when it's not being used. The entire assembly is mounted to the hitch.
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To start, we purchased sheet metal, square tube, round tube and mounting hardware. We then plasma cut the sheet metal, cut all the tubes to length, drilled holes, and prepared the surface of each part for welding and painting. Jigs were designed and built so we could weld the parts that hold the crown of the fork and the rear wheel. All the parts were then painted and assembled together. To finish off the build, I purchased rope, grip tape and rubber to secure and protect the bike at the contact points with the rack. I also 3D printed end caps for the tubes to keep water out.
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In the end, our bike rack cost about half of what we would have paid to buy a new rack of a similar style. I also learned a lot about general fabrication and assembly, including how to MIG weld.