Handmade Alu Panniers (The Greek Way)

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In this thread i'm gonna try to present you a short story about three friends and a plan...
The story began to be written on a rainy afternoon in November of 2011, in a small village in central Greece, when I visited my friend Fotis in his lab to discuss an idea that has long turned my head. To fabricate aluminum panniers for my motorcycle, a Honda African Twin 750 cc.
The hot coffee had been served and my friend was ready to hear my idea. An hour later and after I explained what I wanted to make his response was that we will try to implement the Aluminium Panniers idea.
The next day our friend Panagiotis, who is a designer, was already in front of his computer monitor by taking the design of the panniers.


Phase 1 Design and Development by Panagiotis


Working on AutoCad and after some hours the results was fairly well.




A 35 ltr pannier








Phase 2 Design Patterns by Fotis


and cutting the aluminium parts











Our first panniers is a fact !!!

Phase 3 Βonding














And the result was this...










but....something was wrong and we had to find out what we must re-design and correct...

More in a while...

[Hotmamaandme]

Keep up the good work I need some for my Honda Transalp

[B_B]

Thanks mate.

So, we had to re-desigh and find other materials to equip our alu panniers.
Things was not so easy 'cause we wanted top quality product without the prize to reach high.
And we started again the tests until we reached our goal

Pictures below is from our final result. A 42 and 35 lit set of alu panniers for my Honda Africa Twin.




Side bars is handmade also




Mounting kit (no plastic used, only some elastic parts to prevent scratches to our boxes)












And our first test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=jytYRZkH6ok

10 kgrs in each box
150 km/h max speed

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The result was what we were expected but i didn't like the gap between the exhaust and the the alu panniers at the right side of my old lady, so we decided to make a new set of 2 42 lit boxes with the right alu panniers to "hug" the exhaust.

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And here are some details of our alu panniers

2 mm in aluminum box and lid.
Seal in a box and lid.
Soldering inside and outside of the box.
Open locks the whole set (4 locks) with a key.

[Foot dragger]

VERY NIIIICE! I love stuff made by guys just figuring it out and doing it,If you guys can build that you can build all kinds of trick things for bikes! I like it. Maybe get a seamstress and build form fitting bags that go in them as an option,Ive always like leaving the boxes on the bike and taking the bags inside.

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Some friends saw our alu panniers and they asked to make for their bikes also a set and we said "why not?"
Below are pics from our friends bikes

BMW 1200GS ADV (set of 42 lit alu panniers)


On touratech side bars

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Yamaha XT660Z Tenere (set 35 lit)

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BMW 800GS (set 35 lit)

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Originally Posted by Foot dragger

VERY NIIIICE! I love stuff made by guys just figuring it out and doing it,If you guys can build that you can build all kinds of trick things for bikes! I like it. Maybe get a seamstress and build form fitting bags that go in them as an option,Ive always like leaving the boxes on the bike and taking the bags inside.

Thanks a lot mate !!!
We are already in the search for the fitting bags and for more other gadgets for the boxes

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BMW 1200GS '07 (set 42 lit on Holan side bars, Total Black Edition)

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BMW 1200GS (set of 42, 35 lit on Givi side bars)

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Honda xl1000v Varadero (set of 38lit with alu stamps)

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BMW 650GS (set of 42lit in alu colour with black finishing)

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For more info and pics you can visit our fb page and in a few days at our web page www.atlaspanniers.com

p.s Thanks a lot AdvRider for the hospitality of our work !!!!!!!