Keith's ("bee0912" on the forum here) dad has a physical mobility issue happening right now. He's got an adjustable 4-prong cane that he uses while inside the house, and then an electric scooter for when he travels outside the house. The scooter came with a craptastic cane holder that [almost] holds the cane under one of the arm rests on the scooter. It would work for about 1 minute, then either the cane would fall to the ground, or it would prevent his dad from getting in/out of the scooter. Piss-poor design all the way around. Keith's dad knew that I love fabricating stuff like this, so he asked me if I could come up with something to solve his cane-on-the-scooter issue. Of course......I'm a frickin' genius, right? So, I went over to Keith's house and got a look at what we're dealing with. The scooter actually has a 1" hitch receiver built into the bottom of the seat! Check it out: The plan was then formulated to get a 'clip' of some sort that holds the main shaft of the cane, and utilize the hitch receiver. 1" square steel stock was used (good thing it only comes in 4' lengths! LOL). We trimmed off about 8" and got to work with some rough dimensions: A little bit more trimming: I know what you're thinkin': "Air tools FTW!", but that's only half-right. SPARKS FTW!!! The mounting hole was drilled and the piece test fit: We're using a 5/16" bolt instead of the clevis pin that came with the scooter. We had a piece of 1" flat stock steel left over from Keith's exhaust tip project, so that was going to be our mount surface for the clip. The angle was checked: ....and we were off to the welder! Our friend's father did a quick weld job of the flat stock to the square tube on all 4 sides. He also ground down the edges a little (takes some of the work off my belt sander...heh heh). NOTE: Keith has all the welding pictures. I'll get them in here ASAP. A little bit of touch up work was done with the Dremel and the hand files, and here it is ready for paint: Basic satin black Rustoleum was used: The paint is 104% temporary as the hitch holder will be going to JMB Performance for powder coating when we send our next box-o-parts for Justin to work his magic on. Throughout the night, 4 coats of paint were applied: It is FAR from my best paintwork, but...it'll do for a few weeks. At least there's *some* protection. This afternoon I applied about 5 thin coats of clear: As you can see, there's some checking going on. This is why you don't rush paint work. The 5/16" bolt was measured and then trimmed: Spiffy! I cruised over to Keith's and we started on the fitting of the holder: The clip (I've had it kicking around my work bench for more than a year) had it's mount holes enlarged slightly to accommodate the 10-24 screws we were using. It was then installed onto the holder with blue Loc-Tite on the screw threads: And finally, the real test: It works! Of course, we had to do some real-life testing! Keith in normal driving mode: The "Performance Perspective" shot: And, of course, the "High Speed-Full Tuck" shot: A quick lap around the 'track' to complete the testing: (As you can see, it was raining out, so we didn't get optimal times....) In the end, Keith's dad was extremely happy, and Keith gave it a very high rating himself: Oh yeah!! ALL CONTENT ©2008 Kevan J. Geier & Keith Norton ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
yea right... you don't suppose it had anything to do with the 3 beers he emptied just getting out of the garage to the sidewalk? How come you didn't put some Corsa tips on it while you were at it?
That is badass. A job well done Kevan and Keith. Now, patend that and start marketing it. I have seen the infomercials on that chair, but they never showed the cane storage. Now I know why. lol I can not believe you did not fit it with some Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaawz. lol
It's electric Ron. Start out with an overdrive pully. Then add an assist motor driven by compressed air to get it off the line. You can paint the tank green and label it "O2" for a real sleeper.
Ha, i like the beer cans in the basket... Should get a energy drink of that NOS and mount the bottle somewhere for him... It'll give him about 20 hp
