DIY Brompton Basket

I've just wrapped up a mini project: getting a DIY basket working with my brompton folding bike. This wasn't really a project I thought of, nor did all the work for from the beginning, but it's still pretty satisfying nonetheless.

The story started a few months ago when I saw someone on r/brompton who had hacked together an ikea basket with a 3D printed mount for the brompton luggage block. Despite the thread being pretty old, I still managed to get a response from the original poster to ask how it was working out. They shared that it was reasonably good, and sent me a link to the 3D model for their most recent iteration.

Next, I called in my good pal Jeff who kindly 3D printed the entire model (which turned out to be one of the largest/longest things he's printed) and brought it over on his next visit. Next, I ordered the same basket as the post on reddit, walked over to Home Hardware to buy some screws and bolts and started putting it together.

The system definitely feels a bit hacky; I bought too big of screws for the wire mesh of the ikea basket, but I eventually fitted them through with much wiggling and forcing. I don't know much about structural integrity in any form, but I bought washers that could plate the bolt entry/exits so that the pressure of the screws weren't directly applied to the plastic of the model.

All in all, I'm delighted at how it came together. I have to say this is an example of the internet as a good machine (whatever that means). It's also really nice to work on a piece of a project (rather than have to come up with the 3D model, test it and iterate etc) as a way to dip my toes into more DIY stuff.

Happy riding, wish me luck that it doesn't fall off!