First cardboard pieces

Today the first two pieces of paper maché finally got of the mold. A few days ago I've decided to make it easy for myself, I've used the plug as a positive mold for a first try out. I figured out that if this would work, I wouldn't have to make molds at all and could do with the plug as only mold. Safes a lot of work...
Here you can see the plug in red in it's, yet, final state.

I then fitted the paper maché (or should I say laminate?) on it, layer by layer.
This is the first layer.

After some more layers and 5 days of drying, I 've decided to make two pieces and remove them from the mold. See what made me happy today.

It feels good to see that the pieces came out quite nicely. Now the rest, I'll keep you updated.

The plug isn't finished yet...but almost

Let's call it a milestone in the Vrijwiel Solo cardboard project. The plug for the cardboard project is smooth. There are still some small scratches and little bumps here and there, but nothing too serious. It still needs to get one or two layers and some sanding but I already like the looks of it.

And the winner is...

... Puck Imants! Last week I was able to present her with her price.
Yes, she was happy, came all the way to the workshop by bus to be able to cycle home on it.

This bike is gone, but if you feel the urge to own one yourself, don't hesitate to contact me. As mentioned earlier in the blog, there are plans for producing it. The plans will become reality as soon as there is enough interest. When we will start, it will be a first run of 5 Vrijwiel City for an introduction price of €699,00.

We are also still producing the Vrijwiel Solo and the original Vrijwiel. Have a look at the website for more details. Hope to see you soon on
www.vrijwiel.nl

...we got ourselfs a winner!

As posted before, there were 80 competitors who tried themselves in weighing the Vrijwiel City. Even though I first planned to give away the Vrijwiel City from 100 entries, due to the positive reactions of the crowd I've finally decided to do it at 80. According to this change of rules the new owner of the Vrijwiel City would have been the person who's estimation would be closest to the actual weight. Feeling quite generous about myself, I put the Vrijwiel City on the scales today, not knowing that there was one person in the crowd who is either very lucky, or who's weighing (or should I say, estimation-) skills are so developed that she doesn't need scales at all...
The winning estimation is: 15,27 kg which is the actual weight of the Vrijwiel City prototype!!!

I hereby congratulate Puck Imants with her new Vrijwiel City. As soon as she gets her bike, I will post pictures of the lucky winner.

After Queensday

Queensday (and night) was great, we had a good spot in the center of Utrecht. I had to explain the ins and outs of the Vrijwiel City right from the start. A lot of people were interested in it and at the end of the day we had about 80 participants standing on the list to win the first Vrijwiel City.
Because of the great interest I've decided to lower the mark to the number of 80. That means that the Vrijwiel City will get a new owner!
The last thing I have to do before my little holiday is to apologize to the participants, the results will rather be on the website on Tuesday than on Monday. Sorry for that. Thanks for all the interest and the good comments. I will post again next week.