Decorative Bicycle

In recent times I have been exploring making sculptures, crafts with wire and other mediums; I have a good amount of projects piled up that I have procrastinated and not finished.

I wanted to make it a goal to finish those projects so that they are no longer gathering dust and also to practice creating instructions so that the re-creation of these projects can become understandable and reach more people who might find them useful or spark new ideas.

• Copper wire
• Galvanized wire
• Washers
• Solder wire
• Soldering iron
• Pliers
• Adhesive tape
• Measuring tape
• Marker
• Gold spray
• Mask
• Paper
• Cardboard

We will start the ornament bike, from the front of the bike. 

• With the tape measure, we measure about 6 cm on the galvanized wire, and cut.
• To this piece, we measure 1.5 cm at each end; with the pliers we bend inward at the 1.5 cm marks to make the handlebars.
• Then we cut 3 cm of wire, which would be the neck of the bicycle that connects the handlebars to the arc of the wheels.
• We measure and cut a 9 cm piece to make a narrow arch for the wheels.
• We take the separate ends of this bow, and twist with the round nose pliers, to make a ring at the end of the bow.
• Then we stand at the back of the hoops we just made and twist in the opposite direction to align the hoops to the bow.
• We are left with 3 pieces that we will then weld together.

In this step, we proceed to cut and form the pieces that make up the seat of the bicycle, we will end up with 3 different pieces.

• First we will measure 12 cm in wire and cut.
• Mark half of the 12 cm piece and fold in half.
• Place the pliers on that mark and bend on each side at the 1.5 cm mark, and make a triangle.
• What we have left over wire from this piece, we move it down, to make the seat of the bicycle.
• We measure another piece of wire, this time of 10 cm; we cut and mark the middle of it. Bend the middle of the piece to make a bow.
• Place the pliers at the ends of this arc and twist inward to make rings.
• Finally, we measure 5.5 cm and cut this piece of wire to make another arch from the middle.

In this step, we will make the body or frame of the bicycle. We will shape it into something like a scalene triangle.

• We measure a 13 cm wire and cut it.
• To this 13 cm wire, we will measure 5.5 cm and bend it with the pliers; this 5.5 cm piece will be our frame top.
• At the end of this 5.5 cm side, we measure 0.5 cm and bend inward almost like closing the triangle (without closing it).
• With our remaining side, measure 1.5 cm and fold inwards with the help of pliers, without closing the scalene triangle.
• With this we have a simple bicycle frame.

In this step we are going to make the wheels of the bicycle, with the help of metal washers.

• We will measure 14.5 cm of wire and cut two pieces.
• To these two pieces, with the help of pliers, we will shape them by moving the pliers around the wire to close the circle.
• And so we get two bicycle wheel frames.
• To make the spoke of the wheel, we take pieces of 4 cm.
• Then we fold in half to make wide arches.
• We make 4 of these arches per wheel.
• With the help of adhesive tape, we fix these arches to the wheel frame, in order to weld them.
• We start with the ends of these 4 arches to the wheel frame, and then we weld the middle of these arches to a washer in the center of the wheel.
• We weld one washer on each side of the wheel.
• We repeat the same with the second wheel.
• This way we get the two wheels of the bicycle.

In this step, we will weld the parts made in the previous steps.

• Start with welding the handlebar and the parts made in step 1.
• Put a drop of solder wire on the arch of the frame made in step 3, and then weld it to the handlebar.
• Take the help of adhesive tape so that the structure does not move, and weld the seat to the back of the frame.
• Take the small bow made in step 2 and weld it to the bottom of the seat.
• Do the same with the second bow made in step 2, but weld the bow to the top of the seat, under the seat triangle.
• Then join the bow rings to the small bow.
• Weld the washers on each side, where we will put the pedals.
• With the structure assembled, now weld the wheels.
• Take the end of a wire, you don't need much wire for this.
• Bend it to less than 0.5 cm from the end.
• Pass the other end of the wire through the wheel and close it by making another small bend.
• Then solder the axle.

To finish making the objects of the bicycle, in this step we will make the pedals and the kickstand.

• We cut a wire of about 13.5 cm.
• Grab one end and bend it straight to 1 cm, to form a square.
• Grab the end of the wire with the square and bend it 2 cm upwards, to obtain the first pedal.
• Insert the remaining end of the wire through the hole between the two washers.
• Here, we bend towards the opposite side to make the other pedal.
• We make another square to finish the other pedal.
• We finish by welding the pedals to the structure.
• To make the kickstand, we take one end of the wire and bend it to 0.5 cm to make a hook.
• Measure 3 cm and bend to make the leg of the kickstand.
• We take with the pliers the hook we made before and bend out the 3 cm end.
• Then we cut the kickstand making an extra 1 cm end.
• Hook the kickstand to the rear wheel axle.
• Weld the kickstand to the rear wheel axle.

Having the bike already assembled and soldered, we can add details; in this case, I used copper wire to cover the ends of the handlebars of the bicycle, the pedals and the seat, to give them a detail that highlight these objects.

• With the copper wire, roll on one edge of the wire the object we want to interlace with copper wire, after this, we make a free assembly or following the interlacing pattern you like.

Once the assembly, welding and final details have been completed, we finish giving it a coat or two of gold spray paint.

• Doing it in a ventilated place and with a mask.
• Try to move and cover all parts of the piece.
• I used a wide paper to avoid staining the floor.