Sunday 12 May 2013

Bobber rear struts lathe practice

Heres some pics showing the fast back struts made out of Copper, Brass and Stainless.
The reason I used the different metals was for lathe practice as turning is a new thing
for me, very interesting how the various metals cut, Brass is sweet due to self lubricating,
no heat and cuts a dream, Copper is nice to but generates and retains a lot of heat and
Stainless is fine with small cuts and plenty of cooling fluid.
Real enjoyable and satisfying making your own shit even though these struts wont be used
on the finished build, its all about learning a new skill at this stage.
Having said that, ive always admired English vintage bikes and the lighter gauge mounting
design they use, similar to the 1/4" stainless rod shown here.




 
 

Home made t-dolly

The beauties of being able to weld now, making your own gear exactly how you want it.
I reckon this dolly will get a lot of use, handy form.



Bobber lastest pics

This is how she stands so far, god knows what the final out come will be but pretty confident it'll be a sweet looking cycle.
Next week iam hopeful to pick up the primary belt drive, clutch and full rear mechanical braking system as they were in 46.
 

 
 

Metal forming practice

If you had told me a year ago that I will be metal shaping down in the shed, I would of shook my head in doubt "what me? you cant be serious! how does a bloke my age learn a centuries old craft"
I really hope that somewhere out there, this page is read by someone of similar mindset wanting to give it a crack but not believing they could do it. I can honestly tell you now to fuck that idea right out of your head, if you've got the passion and want your half there already.
The cost to set up was minimal, English wheel was $275, shot bag and hammers $180 or there abouts, All ive been working with is commercial 1mm Aluminium, real nice to start on I feel focusing more on just getting used to the tooling and what it does.












Below shows the long awaited shot bag and 1 of 2 mallets fresh in from the states, about 60 bucks each and I think the shot bag was 60 bucks as well which included a sweet little hand held bag and a piece of sacrificial leather for protection .  Money well spent, so nice using the correct tools for beating metal.


 
 
Belows pic is a fine example of someone with 2 months welding experience trying to tack 1mm aluminium! Man did this fight me, even after doing reasonable test pieces prior. since then ive read
a lot of forums and was lucky enough to find one where a bloke had written in with my exact problem, the replies are from experienced tradesmen that are great so ive got a bunch of settings to try, the one in particular iam interested in seeing is using the largest shielding cup and dropping the
argon back to 5 ltrs / min., anyway, it will get sorted with more TIG time in the chair
The overall  look of the tank is sweet, graceful shape,


Heres a scale tank using 1mm steel which I havnt worked with before so it was a good little project where I used hammer and t-dolly, English wheel, TIG welding and linishing