I'm Baaaaaaaack

Hey everyone,
Sorry for being such a slug and letting all this time go by without a post. You probably thought I've given up...

Well, I haven't. In fact, I've been a little busy.

I picked up where I left off with the frame and fabbed up the cylinder head mount.

This little piece of 1 inch tubing was rolled, cross-drilled, "piercing tubes" fit, and mitered. There is more work in that one piece of tubing than all the others combined! Hand-filing the miters to be as precise as I could get them... cross-boring the piercing tube holes at exactly 90 degrees... matching the radius to my already water-jet cut mounting plates... I probably went about this piece COMPLETELY in the wrong order, but hey! Alls I gots is time. I was able to go slow and make sure it fit. It does, and for this pic, it's just being held by the mounting plates. I'll weld it in soon.

Here's more of a "full frame" pic

See? It's starting to actually resemble a motorcycle!
I also worked on the "seat post." It's going to continue the arc of the cylinder head mount tube and basically "hang" off the backbone of the frame...

Like this:

That was a fun mitering job too! LOTS of filing and skin taken off my knuckles. It's such a shallow angle so it had to be done by hand. In this pic the seat tube is being supported by a wooden block on the rear rim... when it's all welded, it'll be half the length it is now, but still just "hang" off the back. I may use a small gusset underneath, but I chose a thicker-walled piece of tubing here. That should give me more surface area for making a nice, strong weld. This piece is also 1 inch in diameter and the seat will mount to this tube using a "sliding" bracket so I can position the seat fore or aft along the tube. As my drawing sits now, the ergonomics are almost identical to a 2007 Honda CBR600RR. (as far as the relationship between the footpegs, seat, and handlebars go...) I wanted to build in a little adjustability for a final fit once everything is generally in it's place.

BUT...
Probably my favorite part of the frame so far is this little "port" where I'm going to internally run the wiring. I'll have 5 wires coming out of the engine's left (magneto) side and from there, they'll enter the frame and be hidden. I cut an oval-shaped hole in the tube behind the engine and brazed in a small, curved piece of 1/2 inch thin-wall tubing. Once it was brazed, I shaped it to this nice, flowing fillet.

Other than that, I've played around with the rear axle mount plates, rear caliper mount and location, etc. I have lots more engineering to do with the whole rear end, but you can see in this pic where I'm going with the whole thing. I'm not crazy about the shape of the axle plates, but they're doing their job for now. You can see the large, cross-drilled "piercing tube" at the rear of the main frame backbone... this is where the "seat stays" will connect from the axle plated to the backbone... and from the lower section of the axle plates, tubes will connect to the lower rear engine mount... I'm sure you get the idea.

Anyway, it's really rough right now, but this is how I figure things out.


Again, sorry for all the time that has passed without an update. It's been good to get back into the garage. My goal for this summer is to have a roller! I think I can do it.



Thanks fer watchin'!