2017 - Volume #41, Issue #1, Page #05
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Kentucky Inventor Powers Bike With An Old Chainsaw
“My 12-year-old son, Eli, loves to make and invent things and spends a lot of time in the shop. He loves your magazine so I thought you might be interested in talking to him.”That was an email I received the other day from Ela Ladwig in Waynesburg, Kty., about her son. She suggested I check out Eli’s YouTube channel, which features a bunch of his ideas, and so I spent an enjoyable hour watching this enthusiastic young inventor show off his ideas (go to YouTube.com and search up “Milo n Eli”).
In the videos, which always start out “Good morning everybody. Hope you’re having a good day!”, Eli shows a bunch of projects, including making a cannon out of lawn mower parts, using epoxy to make jewelry, repairing tractors and trucks, milling a bowl out of Osage orange, and much more. What makes the videos so fun to watch is Eli’s enthusiasm. He films and edits all the videos himself. One that caught my eye was powering a bicycle with a chainsaw. To do this one, Eli mounted a saw - minus the bar and chain - on a flat metal plate above the rear wheel and then friction-drives it with a roller mounted on the side of the chain pulley. He adjusts tightness of the drive with a turnbuckle and says the motor-powered bike travels at speeds up to 34 mph on flat ground.
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