Water jet was it.

After knowing in my gut that water jet cutting was probably the way to go, I sent some metal out to California to be cut properly. Hydrocut Waterjet was one of the only businesses (that I found) who offered a "no minimum" policy. Most places have a minimum of $150 just to turn their machine on which in my case was way too much for the few pieces I had to get cut.

So, this being my first time sending out digital files to a CAD system, I was hoping everything would work properly. I probably over-did it, but I sent printouts of what the final pieces should look like (to scale of course...) just to prevent being disappointed when I got the parts back!

So I wait a week, and this nice box is waiting for me on my doorstep...

Honestly, I was a little nervous to open the box, but when I did, I found this:

And THIS!

That is what I had in mind the whole time. And, it's about as perfect as you can get. The edge is like a fine bead-blasted finish. Pretty crazy for a high pressure stream of water with a little garnet dust in it!
They even left the parts "attached" in the steel plate by leaving a tiny hair of steel left uncut so all I had to do was bend the pieces back and forth a little to get them out. Kinda like when you'd remove model car parts from the plastic tree when building a model...

So, when attached to the engine they look like this:

 And with the rear frame tube attached, this:

It seems like I've been waiting FOREVER to get this far! ...but it has enabled me to finish up the design of the rear axle plates, disc hanger, chain adjusters, rear-end lifters for the rear stand, etc. Since my budget is ...um ...small, that was all I could do.

But, we're starting to get a little more momentum now.
I picked up my tubing roller from my friend Fred the body-man so I can start on the "main backbone" of the frame next. That will have the nice, gentle curve from the steering head to the rear of the engine. -That's where the roller comes in...

Check back soon! 

Success... and disappointment

Seems like lots of time has passed by since my last post...

The past few weeks have been good, but also not so good.
First, some good:

I ordered my first shipment of raw materials

Believe it or not, that's about $150 worth of metal... The 2 large squares are 6061-T6 aluminum. One is .375" thick and the other is .25" This will be turned into engine mounting plates. The rest is 1020 steel tubing in varying diameters and wall thicknesses.

I started with the frame tube that will go from behind the engine up toward the seat. It will angle backwards at a 15 degree angle, and "piercing tubes" -my description- will be inserted through it. The mounting bolts will pass through these piercing tubes.

Once the piercing tubes are fit, and the engine mount plates are in place, I'll start tacking everything together. Keeping everything square and straight will be my challenge...

Another tiny little detail about old machines I've noticed are that the bolt heads are usually bare, or turned. If I were to go to the Hardware store to buy bolts, they're all stamped or have the grade on the bolt head. This is fine, but I kind of prefer a "turned" appearance. I know they're all grade 8 bolts, but I don't need to advertise it. Kinda like that car dealer sticker on the back of your car... So, I've been turning all the bolt heads, and making the nuts sit flush with the end of the bolt.
Call me insane...

And now for the disappointment...

I found a local guy with a CNC plasma cutter who agreed to cut out the engine mount plates. I met with him and saw some of his work. It wasn't perfect, but it would be good. When I picked up the pieces, he wasn't happy with his work so he just gave them to me without charging me. A nice gesture, but according to him, he wasn't used to aluminum of this quality and it gave his machine a hard time. So, long story short... I can't use the pieces. The edge isn't square, and for me to make it square would remove too much material. Every cut edge is tapered, and the taper goes in all directions.

So, although plasma cutting aluminum is possible, and can sometimes be a great way to achieve desired results... this guy, on this day, with this machine, with this aluminum didn't happen.

The best method would've been water-jet cutting... which is where my new metal is now. Hydrocut Waterjet in Hunnington Beach CA.
I kind of knew I was taking a chance on the plasma, and it bit me. So, note to self...
go with your gut and don't waste money. I HATE wasting money.

Live and learn.... and I gotta say... there's a lot of learnin' goin on!


So, STILL nothing real to look at... I promise it's happening, it's just going a lot slower than I thought.

Thanks for looking!

The Training Wheels are comin' off!

So, to recap really briefly:
   I got this cheap bike as a starting point to make a custom board track-styled motorcycle

   The first goal was to make the engine run reliably, and possibly add a little power.

   The second goal was to purchase some gas welding equipment, and actually learn to USE it!

   And here is 9 months worth of welding practice

I think my favorite practice piece is the v-shaped piece in the front. I used to have a Cervelo P2k triathlon bike with some aero bars on it, and I always liked those bars. When I got my "practice kit" of steel pieces, there was some aero tubing in it so I thought instead of just making anything out of it, I'd try to reproduce the general shape of the bars. After cutting, fitting, and welding, I put an abrasive/polishing disk in my drill press at a high speed and shined up the "bars". Here's a close-up

So, I am by no means a journeyman welder, but my skills have progressed to the point of me "taking off the training wheels" so to speak. I believe I am ready to start on the real stuff. It's MY butt that is going to be on this thing (with no suspension remember...), so believe me when I say that I am confident my welds will be strong enough!
I've ordered all the aluminum and steel that I'll need for the front triangle of the frame. That should arrive this week! I'm really excited to get started on it. I also found someone locally who has a CNC plasma cutter. He's the uncle of someone I work with, and because of that hook-up, he's only charging me $8 per part! For those who don't know, that's a screamin' deal.


Stay tuned... the next entry should have some engine mount plates made (kind of like the old Harley "Keystone" board track frame design) and possibly the "seat tube" section of the frame.


I can't wait until this thing is a roller!

Merry Early Christmas!

As posted in my last entry, I made a quick mention of a drill press... Well, being that I am primarily welding tubing together to make this motorcycle frame, I needed a way to miter (fish-mouth) the tubing ends so I could fit them properly. So, one of the ways is to use a drill press and a hole-saw. I needed to find a drill press that would slow down enough to cut steel. I found a few that would fit the bill, but they were not available locally...

So, instead of being able to plunk down some cash for a new tool, I also had to consider shipping (on a tool that weighs almost 200lbs.) and find a location for the 18-wheeler to deliver to... And I haven't even mentioned getting if OFF the truck. Drivers aren't allowed to remove it (unless you pay another fee) So, if I wanted one of these "out of state" tools, I'd have to basically double the price to get it to my... work. An 18 wheeler wouldn't make it to my house.

I guess that's one of the things that I miss about living in the Chicago 'burbs... I could pretty much drive 20 miles in any direction and get anything in the world. Asheville, NC is a little different. Anyway... I digress.

So, I decided the Porter-Cable Drill Press from Lowes would fit the bill the best. Plus, I had a 20% off coupon for Harbor Freight that Lowes HONORED!!! You know how "they" say that it never hurts to ask? -Well, it doesn't!

Gracing the table of the drill press is a compound-slide vise. I don't plan on doing any milling on my drill press, but it sure cuts down on positioning and re-positioning of the vise! So far, I really like the setup.

So, this year, Santa (Deb) came a little early... Come to think of it, he (she) came early last year too. Last year was the lathe.

Slowly, but surely, the "shop" is coming along.

Still practicing...

So, another blog post about welding.
Sorry if it's a little boring to watch, but it's all I've been doing lately. I ordered that box of 4130 cut offs to practice on, and it's getting hard for me to come up with new ideas for my practice pieces.
Most of my masterpieces start with a long piece of tubing, and I make little cuts to add to it. So, I guess I'm a "porcupine" artist.  I would imagine beginning welders would probably have tons of this junk laying around... Perhaps I'm in good company.

So, here are the latest:

Never mind the messy workbench... This one started off as your basic helicopter-shaped thing, then more and more pieces got added. The small pieces were mitered (or "fish-mouthed") so they'd butt up against the main tube. Some of these were mitered by hand with a file, and some were sanded with a drum sander attached to a drill press... (?!?!) -See next post...

another view...

This one was a strength test. Seems my welds are strong enough yes?

This my latest piece. It's kind of like a "jack" if you remember those... But this was all mitered tubing.

So, I'm just trying to use up my box of practice pieces.
All of what you see here is for sale, if you're looking for some art for your home.
Please get in touch with me if you see anything you like.

Stay tuned...

Ok, how about a post that's NOT welding?

You asked, I listened.
I get thousands of emails every day asking for more motorcycle-progress pics.
I can see how the welding stuff may be a little boring for some of you...

One of my first "real" welding projects was to build an "engine cradle." -That's what I call it anyway...

I built this so I could position the engine exactly where it needs to be in relation to the frame. The sprockets are perfectly lined up, the engine is level, and centered. The 3 bolts are to make fine adjustments. I think it may have to move toward the front wheel slightly, but from side to side, it's right on.
All you sharp-eyed viewers will notice 2 things... One, that's a HUGE counter-shaft sprocket on that thing! Yes, and it's custom. PBI made it, and it's really 18 tooth. There is a matching 42 tooth on the rear that a company called "Rebel Gears" made me. I had to go custom on the sprockets because of the rear hub/wheel combo. I'm using dirt bike wheel parts, and dirt bikes use very large rear sprockets. Plus, the fact that the rear wheel is 21 inch (!!) that plays a part also. SO, in order for me to get back in the ball park with the final drive ratio, I had to come up with a front/rear sprocket combo that would do that. The SMALLEST rear sprocket I can get is a 42 tooth. (without machining away some of the bolt shoulders in the hub... and I didn't want to do that) So in order to be somewhat close to the stock gearing, I needed an 18 tooth front. -Rebel gears again. They hooked up the PBI.

The second thing to notice in the photo is the nice, shiny silver patch on the case below the sprocket. This is what raw aluminum looks like. I'm glad to know that the brown, "gas stained" clear coat will come off with a little paint stripper and elbow grease.

So, now we're looking like this:

The drawing on the wall behind the bike is new as well... It keeps morphing into more detail, but I think I'm set on the final design/measurements. I have the "plates" that will bolt the engine to the frame tubes drawn out and those will be made out of aluminum... .375" for the rear plates and .25" for the front/top. I may have a lead on a guy here in town with a laser cutting machine, but if he doesn't work out, there's a water-jet company in Cali with no minimum charge on cutting. Hopefully I can keep it all as local as I can.

So what's next? Probably ordering my frame tube steel, and I think ol' Santy may come a little early this year... One of the little elves mentioned something about a drill press with a cross-slide vise. That would be about as close to a milling machine as I'd ever get, and a VERY nice Christmas present.
As usual, if you can hang on, I'll have more...
I promise.

Dang...

It's been almost 3 months since I last posted anything. Sorry to the faithful few who sometimes check this blog.
Much has happened though... I was able to meet with "Jim" the technical counselor from the EAA and it went really well. We pretty much just talked for the first hour. He lives on an airport like some folks live on a golf course. He can literally roll an airplane out his hangar and it's about a 50 yard trip to the runway. I couldn't believe that he actually prepared for my visit by setting up some flat 4130 sheet for me to run a horizontal bead on, and some mitered (super-thin) tubing to tack and join too. I had never worked with .020 tubing before. That was hard. But by the end of my visit, I was told that I was doing just fine... I just needed some "seat-time." -Practice... that is.
Airplane guys are just cool.

Here are some of my awesome sculptures:

This thing was pretty crazy. It started off as a couple pieces, but then I couldn't think of anything creative to do with it so I just kept adding new strips. There wasn't too much thought into this thing, it's just taken a life of it's own. I'm sure all beginning welders have this kind of stuff littering their workbenches...

This was my first attempt at brazing. I was at AutoZone and I found some $4 brazing rod. I'm sure it's junk, and all they tell you is that it's "phosphor bronze" rod. Yes, I know I over-heated it, Yes, I know it boiled, Yes, it's ugly, but see those bends? I COULD NOT break this thing. I went back and forth in the vise with a hammer, and it's still holding. I can assure you that I have gotten a little better at my brazing and heat control since this little experiment...

I bought a box of 4130 cut-offs from a company called "Aircraft Spruce." They sell a welder's kit for about $27. It came with a bunch of different diameters/wall thickness/shapes of tubing. Some of it was just cool. I LOVE aero tubing.

So, I started in on this stuff. There was a 1 inch diameter .090 wall thickness tube that I drilled .5 inch holes in. Then I inserted small lengths of .5 inch .083 wall tubes thru the big tube and welded them in... like this:

This is one of the better examples:

And for the last one, I did a little "fillet braze" joint. Bicycle builders beware...

I've probably tried every welding tip and gas pressure combination I can think of and for most of the good welds (in my .060 tubing) I've decided that my #0 tip at 5psi works the best. With the 1 or 2 tip I'm not flowing enough gas and I get torch pop. With the #0, It's kinda hissy with the gas turned up to melt the .060 steel, but I seem to have much better results. Perhaps that will change with more experience, but for now I think I may be ready to start tackling some of my actual frame.
The plan is to start with the main frame tube that goes from the back of the engine up towards the seat. Then the top tube connecting to the head, then the down tube from the head to the front of the engine.
-But, I'm not rushing this. These are the important tubes!

Thanks for looking! More to come...