General Cycling Discussion - Corrugated Plastic Panniers

Well I have been looking for cheap (i man under 10$) panniers, and have been unable to find any. With Election day just a couple hours from starting I thought that I would try making myself some panniers. Out of what?

Coroplast! Thousands of Soroplast signs litter the sides of the streets, and since the election will soon be over, there is no need for them. I will be collecting some and trying to make panniers out of them along with some cloth, duct tape, and other cheap materials i can find.

Wish me luck:D

Take pictures! Sounds like a cool idea.

sounds cheap!
can't buy even a small seat bag for $10, much less panniers.

Well I have been looking for cheap (i man under 10$) panniers, and have been unable to find any. With Election day just a couple hours from starting I thought that I would try making myself some panniers. Out of what?

Coroplast! Thousands of Soroplast signs litter the sides of the streets, and since the election will soon be over, there is no need for them. I will be collecting some and trying to make panniers out of them along with some cloth, duct tape, and other cheap materials i can find.

Wish me luck:D

Duct tape and other adhesive tapes don't stick to Coroplast well. The adhesive tends to slide off, leaving an ugly, gooey mess.

I've heard of people sewing Coroplast together with dental floss, but I had good success with zip-ties. A few years ago I built a couple tailboxes for my recumbent, and I wrote up instructions:
http://home.comcast.net/~jeff_wills/tailbox/index.htm
http://home.comcast.net/~jeff_wills/tailbox2/index.html
These can be easily adapted to upright use.

Have fun! After Tuesday, it's Coroplast harvesting season!

Good idea, post whatever you come up with. Mebbe some helpful fasteners- zip ties, of course. And maybe some nylon string, or light tie wire, or old string trimmer string for lacing things together. Use an awl(or whatever you have) to poke holes for lacing.

***Edit- Ahh! Jeff beat me to it! :P

square buckets work well and are far stronger.
http://www.cobbworks.com/

Thanks for the tip on the duct tape, maybe i'll use the plastic tie idea.

And as for the buckets, I really want something thinner and lighter, because my bike is heavy enough as it is :P

And just to warn you guys wanting updates, I may not be able to start until this weekend. I have LOTS of homework

I don't know if the stuff will hold up or not. it's not all that strong.

I was planning on reinforcing the bottom with something stronger.

also the side so it would hold hooks. now the buckets start looking good (G) hey get the bucketsd and cut out excess plastic. need it dry line it with a plastic bag.
the buckets work well till you can afford the real thing.

The Coroplast king is Kent Peterson. Handlebar bag here:

http:\\kentsbike.blogspot.com/2007/08/coroplast-handlebar-bag.html

might give you some ideas. He also fashioned some fenders from Coroplast.

Unfortunately, the links to the mile43 website where the instruction originally appeared seems to be broken. But you can probably email him for details.

Carradice panniers use coroplast as the stiffening board on the base and back. They rivet it to the canvas through the mounting rails. Their bar bag is a coroplast box with a canvas coating, held by rivets. Even without the canvas, the corrugated plastic is really tough, strong and durable. If you double up the base and use x-ply directions it gets much stronger.
You can make flat-folding shopping baskets with zip-tie hinges. With so much material you can experiment with non-square profiles for added heel clearance.
Post some pics please..

Fishing line, use a small finishing nail to make the hole. If you can not find a nail in the junk drawer, use the one holding a picture to the wall...

Good luck, love to see a picture.

Seen a piece on this somewhere - no idea where, so this post is pointless

Where does everyone get coroplast from? I've searched everywhere and the only campaign signs I've found are made of paper-like plastic suspended between wire poles.

Pop rivets with largish washers works really, really well for corrogated plastic.

jim

Unless you want the activity of doing a box like this it's way smarter to re-purpose an old suitcase
or bag to this task to save the $$$$$$$$>

I walked past the polling place just now while walking the dogs. About 2/3 of the signs were the plastic-on-wire, but there were some coroplast signs there as well.

They DO sell blank coroplast signs at Lowe's. I don't remember the price, and it may be too high to be worth using. (They also sell all sizes and shapes of plastic bins, tubs, and buckets).

Thanks for reminding me!

I'm going to go out looking for political campaign signs, as soon as I'm finished with my coffee...

use metal rivets and washers to slap it together.

ooops ...I just read he above post about that...so


+1

THANK You, for reminding me to go out and get some post-election free Coroplast!

I managed to get three signs.
One of them is eight foot by two foot,
(but I cut it in half on-site)

The other two are four foot by four foot.

I'm going to put together a set of Coroplast panniers for my semi-recumbent's rear rack.

Making progress on the panniers.

I went to the hardware store to get a yardstick and a Sharpie marker.

Using a 2 foot by 4 foot piece of coroplast, I marked the centerline.

The rear rack is 5 and a quarter inches wide. Is that standard?

...

The sheet is marked for bending and cutting. I made the first two bends, so the piece will go over the rack, by lining the piece up over the edge of a short piece of I-beam. I had to put the I-beam 'anvil' on top of a wooden box, to get enough room to bend it. The corogations run side to side.
The boxes will be 14 inches long x 8 inches deep x 5 inches wide.

I have a cordless drill to make holes, and I intend to fasten the pieces together with zip-ties and packing tape.

I didn't mean to hi-jack this thread, but as I said THANKS in capital letters for reminding me to go out and get the free Coroplast, available only the day after Election Day.

Do you want pictures? I don't have a digital camera.

Finished!

The panniers came out beautiful!

The Coroplast was harder to bend than I anticipated, especially against the "grain".

The left pannier says "COURT JUDGE" on it in big red letters. That's the way it came out. I wonder if I should paint over it, if possible , or leave it. Might give some daredevil motorists something to think about (jail time).

I will try to take pictures , but don't hold your breath.

you needed to cut v grooves in it so it can bend.

For bending against the grain, it might help to crimp it with a straightedge or before bending- just smush it flat in that area?

Finished!

I will try to take pictures , but don't hold your breath.

*holding breath, turning blue*

Hijack all you want, and I would LOVE to see pictures so I can get a better idea of how to construct mine.

As for coroplast, I managed to grab 5 sheets. Tomorrow I can probably get some more if I wish, though 5 should be way more then enough.

I will use the wire mountings to strengthen the bottom layer.

I will start working this weekend

For bending against the grain, it might help to crimp it with a straightedge or before bending- just smush it flat in that area?

Exactly. I was lucky that I had a four foot piece of I-beam lying around. I used the edge as a straightedge. I leaned on the Coroplast with my palms , using my weight to bend the board. I started at one end, and worked my way across. Then I lifted the Coroplast and was able to bend it.
It definitely needed to be crimped with the straightedge, or it wouldn't have folded in a straight line.

I used plastic zip-ties to hold it together. I drilled two holes for each, about 3/4 inch apart (like a snake-bite).

I managed to make the set of panniers out of one sheet, 24 inch by 48 inch. There is a box on each side, with a piece in between. I used three zip-ties in the end of each box, front and rear. Another four zip-ties were used on each side to hold the panniers to the legs of the rack, for a total of twenty zip-ties.

Photos are being developed at CVS One-Hour Photo, will be posted soon.

I bought a disposable digital camera, which comes with a Photo CD, so I don't have to do the extra step of scanning the prints.

I also photographed the tool-box and I-beam, and the yellow "Type 10", as well as the red flag that I use for hand signals.

Turn your TV to MSNBC!

There was a piece two minutes ago, my Mother informs me, which stated that a Texas company is recycling Coroplast campaign signs into boxes.

I didn't see it because I was typing the last sentence of the previous reply, when my Mother hollered to come see it.

:crash:I have built model airplanes from coraplast.We used contact cement to glue the pieces together.
It turned out heavy for a plane,but they did fly,and were pretty durable.
Rich WB2WGX

Here are the photographs:
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/hotbike/photo_0004-1.jpg
Photo was taken in the new storage room at my Mom's house.
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/hotbike/photo_0005-1.jpg
The Coroplast Panniers. The left says "COURT JUDGE", albeit upside down.
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/hotbike/photo_0006-1.jpg
In this photo, the wooden toolbox and I-beam are in the foreground. The I-beam was used to crimp the coroplast, so it was not necessary to cut the coroplast, which would have weakened the structure.
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/hotbike/photo_0007-1.jpg
The right side box has a "shooting star" emblem, which looks cool.
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/hotbike/photo_0008-1.jpg
In this photo, you can see the red flag, which is used instead of hand signals.

Again, the boxes are 14 inches long, 8 inches deep, and 5 inches wide. Made from a single sheet of Coroplast. There are two flaps, front and rear on the top of the rack, which were left over. I will either trim them, or put reflective tape on them, or something.

Oh that's COOL!! :thumb:

The shooting star definitely looks cool, they look well done.

Thank you all for the compliments. Yeah, I thought the shooting star would look cool, but that's just the way it happened to come out. I figure the chances of that happening are about the same as getting struck by a meteor...

The rack was tilted before I put the panniers on. There was some issue with rusted/seized nut and bolt, the thin metal strip that holds the rack to the top center bar, where the brakes would be, whatchamacallit.

I just got two more signs this morning, one is two foot by eight foot, the other is four foot by eight foot.

Hurry and get your Coroplast signs, there's not many left! You might have to wait two more , or four more years.

the shooting star definitely looks cool, they look well done.

+1

For bending against the grain, it might help to crimp it with a straightedge or before bending- just smush it flat in that area?

I just used a straight edge and crease the Coroplast where I want it to bend. Cutting a "v" in it leaves a weak point that will eventually break.