Rise up!

I've spent too much time on the floor. Taking inspiration from a thread over on DoTheTon I came up with a couple of work table designs.

I like this, but I can't weld, and I don't have any steel

Next was this

Because I could actually make it with 3/4 plywood, I know it looks like a coffin which is a little weird. It was a function of the shape of the bike, I wanted them to take up as little space as possible and be able to nestle... to again, take up less space. I'm working out of a two car garage.

As I started to cut the wood for the coffin one it ended up being square because, that's just so much easier to do with our table saw. Might even be more stable in the end.

contact cement... too much contact cement

you never have enough clamps

These will form the top and bottom surfaces, I used too muct contact cement for it to dry in the 24 hours that I was able to give it, so I had to re-enforce each with 38, inch and a quarter screws.

Setting the carriage bolts for the casters. I really want to get leveling casters but that wasn't in the immediate budget, so these cheapie non locking 300 pounders will have to do for now.

Two sheets of 3/4 ply and two 6 foot 2x4s. All the strength will be along the centerline where it's needed most. This is one whole sheet less than my original design would have needed, much less waste, and you can directly access all the storage space, sweet!

Now I just need another, and I'm half way there because I've got a left over sheet of 3/4. I think I also want to add pegboard to the middle sections to hang small parts and parts bags.

Foam party

Fooled me twice. I tried to use expanding foam to fill the voids in my seat mold, but it just doesn't get hard enough, so now I've torn it all out and have to do it the right way.

With the core of the squishy foam gone I still have to fill the voids so that the mold material wont get sucked into them. I'm going to have to glue blocks onto it.

which means all the glue spots have to be sanded flat

like so

Laminating resin, good stuff, looks like cherry pie filling, smells like ammonia

Seat, abstract, sculpture

Now we wait... and hope it doesn't fall over.

Don't tell the wife

Just bought this for Cinder (VFR)

Very excited! Radial master, radial brakes, clipons included, full brakes (other than the rotors of course)... and gold goes so good with white.

It's not going to be a snap to mount up, steering stem's too long, may not clear the tire at full compression, calipers may be too close together. I think I can make it work though. Only time will tell.

Bear with me

I've already tapped the races into the steering head so I can't show you the full stack, but it doesn't add any height

Old ball bearing stack on the left, new tapered roller on the right... minus the outside race.

The astute viewer will note that I had to use the thin washer (.125) to get the spacing correct.

give her a whack or two... I didn't heat or chill anything, just sprayed the seat down with a good coat of WD40 and got some PVC pipe to direct the pressure.

and she's home...

...and ready to be packed

like this

the upper bearing on the other hand is less than a perfect fit... hopefully I wont have to eat my words, but I don't think it will matter. The seal's kind of silly though.

Before

After

back on two wheels!

bearings are in and she's back on rubber. Maybe my next project should be insulating the garage.

I wanted to post pics with that statement, but Shozu's not cooperating, so without further adieu:

Went together a lot harder than it came apart, everything's tight now... in a good way

When I had Ceasar do my powdercoat I left the masking a little short

so that I could sand a nice clean edge on it

I adore this color combo

tools

And wouldn't you know it, it almost looks like a bike again

I hung the fairing from the fz600 on it just so that I would get used to it with a nose.

Also I would have taken some better pics of it, but the garage is a mess because it's too cold to spend any time out there to tidy it up, and this was literally as far away as I could get without opening the garage door.

Getting your' bearings

Bearings are expensive, and I don't like working in the cold... so I'm moving slow, and moving inside.

These pics were on my good camera so I'll be posting some more soon