HYDRAULIC BRAKE LEVERS

The Hydraulic Brake Lever was my personal design contribution to the NAHBS 2019 bike. I designed and fabricated hydraulic master cylinders from scratch. 

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I have always been incredibly fascinated by hydraulics. The concept that a small child could lift several cars with a little bit of oil is amazing to me. So when it came time to design components for NAHBS 2019, my first thought was to make hydraulic brakes. Hydraulic bike brakes have been on the market for 30+ years and have been all but perfected. But because I use any chance to make something pretty as a chance to learn something, I wanted to give it my best shot. Given that, I made the bodies out of 6061-T6 aluminum and made the brake levers out of aluminum bronze (because it's real pretty).

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I loved designing these because reading about hydraulics is one thing, but actually designing hydraulics knowing that you'll be the one to manufacture them is a whole different beast. For instance, knowing that master cylinders have to have a certain surface finish for the O-rings to be able to effectively glide over the surface means that you'll have to use a cylindrical hone to add a cross-hatch pattern to the surface. Knowing that you'll need to hone them means that you'll need to do a mill operation wherein the hone will have to enter coaxially into the master cylinder. In order to do a mill operation, you'll need to set it up vertically--so having a rectangular cross section at some point in the body of the brake lever will make your job significantly easier. This project was really a test of my skills to take design requirements and turn them into something that can be made.

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I'm so unbelievably happy with how they turned out. While they look incredibly cool, they even worked and weren't just an aesthetic piece! I really liked getting to add this extra touch to the full bike because it was definitely a step above what anyone else at the show had for their bikes. A frequent question from passers by was "Wait you guys made your own brakes?? Why???"

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For learning, obviously.