INSTRUCTION MANUAL

Made by: Marit van Hekezen, Hisko Veenstra, Joy van Laake and Valentin Wong
Finish date: 4 March 2022
On behalf of: Friendship Foundation
School: Calandlyceum Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Class: 4th year high school, 6V1
Introduction
This instruction manual shows how to make a wheelchair out of bicycle parts. Please keep in
mind that this is our way and approach to make this wheelchair. This manual can be used as a
guideline for your own wheelchair design.

The idea originated from a project we did for The Friendship Foundation. The assignment was
to design a wheelchair for physically disabled people in Sri Lanka who have no money to buy a
professional wheelchair.
During this project, we decided to try and make the wheelchair out of bicycle parts. The reason
behind this is that there are loads of bikes in Sri Lanka which are unused and piled up. We
thought that because those bikes aren't put to use we could recycle them into wheelchairs
which are useful for the population of the physically disabled.

This instruction manual consists of 6 different parts.

1. Necessities and preparations beforehand
2. Part one: weld the sides
3. Part two: connect the sides
4. Part three: make and connect the footrest
5. Part four: connect the wheels
6. Part five: add the chair
Necessities and preparations beforehand:
● Metal (electric) saw and/or a grinding machine
● Sandpaper/sanding machine
● At least 4 bikes, (all made from steel and preferably with the same design)
● MAG welding machine and everything you need to make use of it
● Lawn chair (Fully optional, using another kind of chair is possible)
● 6 nuts and bolts
● Castors, 125 mm

Preparations beforehand:
First you need to prepare the material needed for the frames of the wheelchair. You will get
these frame-parts from the frame of the bike.

Cut the parts encircled above with a saw or grinding machine.

Do this on all of the bikes.

In total you will need these quantities and lengths of frame pieces:
● 2x 450 mm frame (combine two bike frame pieces to achieve the wanted length)
● 3x 430 mm frame (combine two bike frame pieces to achieve the wanted length)
● 2x 100 mm frame
● 2x 725 mm frame
● 2x 260 mm frame
● 2x 290 mm frame

This will be a total of 4940 mm frame, which is about 5 meters. Next you need two forks from
the front wheel of the bike. Choose two forks from two bikes which are similar.
Those will be used to attach the back wheels of the wheelchair.
 Part
one:
weld
the
sides

450 mm

100 mm

260 mm
290 mm

632 mm

Gather frames shown in the picture above and weld them in position as shown. As a result, you
will get the following frame:
Do this twice.
Part two: connect the sides

When both sides are ready, you are going to connect them at the yellow circles as shown
below. For this part, you need the two sides and 3x 430 mm frames.

You will get the following:

Part three: make and connect the footrest

To make the footrest you need two rear bike racks. Make sure they are flat. Weld the pieces
together. You want the footrest to be 470 mm long.

Weld this part on the frame of the wheelchair as follows.

Next, take two 80 mm flat metal strips (You can make those by flattening leftover bike-tubes).
Connect the other side of the footrest with the frame with those metal strips.
This should be the result.
Part four: connect the wheels

First weld the front wheels on to the footrest.

Next, the back wheels have to be welded on the frame.To do that you will need two bicycle forks
as shown beneath. Make sure they are alike.
Weld it as shown above. Do this on both sides.

You will have the following:

The frame is now finished!

Part five: add the chair

For this part, You need 6 flat steel plates with a length of 100 mm. You can obtain these by
flattening frame-pieces of the bike. It is also possible to cut them in half so you can get two
plates from one piece.

Next, bend the pieces in the middle until you have an angle of 90 degrees.

The idea is to weld the pieces onto the frame like this:
Drill holes through the other side of the plates, put the chair on top and mark where the holes
will be on the chair. After you drilled the holes in the chair, you can fix the chair onto the pieces
using nuts and bolts.

Chair

Frame
The wheelchair is finished!