Building a chopper part two, thoughts on welding

It may be a while 'til my axle plates are ready, so I thought I'd write a little about how I plan to nail the beast together

My intention is to MIG weld the new rear frame together, there are a number of reasons for this as follows

1 (and most importantly) I know how to mig weld properly, in my case this means I've been trained to a relatively high standard.
( understanding the theory and being capable of putting it into practice is essential when working on structural components, metal fatigue fractures can move at several metres a second!)

2 mig welding equipment is relatively cheap ( I do mean relatively, buying the cheapest hobby welder you can find isn't the way to go, you get what you pay for, a better quality welder will yield better results every time)
I use the most powerful Clarke welder that a domestic power supply can cope with, it's a very good welder

3 I already own the equipment I plan to use

A lot of people prefer to use TIG welding, and if you have the knowledge and access to the relevant equipment that's great, it's probably the most common system used professionally
Personally, I've never had the opportunity to learn TIG, so MIG it shall be.

As a side note, MIG is a good place to start for someone wanting to learn how to weld, RELATIVELY cheap(see above) and RELATIVELY simple to learn (note RELATIVELY!)

Of course, someone just learning won't be trying to construct frames from scratch, not unless they're bored of living, that'd come under the heading of 'A VERY BAD IDEA'

There are drawbacks when using MIG, it produces a very high, localised heat which can cause significant distortion as the metal expands and if allowed to cool too fast, brittle welds can occur, this would be A VERY BAD THING on a frame!

Luckily, there's a simple solution to this, heating up not just the area being worked on but further out as well until the metal just begins to glow yellow and then immediately welding will minimise distortion and allow the metal to cool slower.
Another good idea is to weld evenly (ie doing both top tubes rather than doing both tubes on the right)
The logic for this is that any distortion should be equal, minimising the chances of pulling the wheels out of line( another very bad thing when it comes to motorcycles!)

Ok, so now I'm impatient to begin, where are my axle plates??!!

Building a chopper with Sidecarjon and Horse

Part one, the donor bike and its history

Let me introduce you to Horse.
This is Horse, already loosely mocked up, just to give an idea of the intended profile etc

Horse (aka crazy horse) is a 1987 Kawasaki KLR 650 trail bike.

In case you're wondering, the name has no Native American connotations.
The bike was so named because riding it in standard form was comparable in my mind to riding a psychotic rocking horse due to the infamously under sprung and under damped suspension and bad brakes that come as standard curtesy of mr Kawasaki san.

Don't get me wrong, it was great fun to ride in its own lunatic way.

Alas, horse has been the victim of two myopic motorists in the past, the second accident being serious enough to need major rebuilding work. "YOU BASTARDS, YOU KILLED HORSE!!"
Actually, damn nearly did for me too, see if you can guess which bit of me made the dents in the tank....


New forks, uprated fork internals and brakes along with junking of many mangled bits were the first steps to Horse's second resurrection, but then stuff and life happened in equal amounts and Horse was left lurking in the back of the garage, gathering dust and playing home to a tribe of homeless spiders.

Now it's time to get my old friend back on the road, but in a very different guise, this is the beginning of a real back street chopper project.

I have already taken my axle plate design to a local engineering firm to be cut out.
yes, I probably could have cut them myself using a drill and hacksaw, but given the amount of time it would have taken, I opted to have them cut out professionally, besides which it was cheap, not much more than the cost if the metal.
As soon as they're done, work will commence

From Swansea to San Francisco (almost) on a Road King

Enthused up by our previous success of an epic one day road trip on our sportster which took us from Brighton to Swansea, taking in Stonehenge and the entire length of Canada en route , we thought it might be fun to see if we could ride from home to San Francisco.

We set off from Swansea in high spirits, the sun was out, and it wasn't raining (two rarities worthy of note)

Taking the South Gower road toward Rhossili, the bike was running perfectly and all was well with the world.

In fact it's a great biking road, winding its way across the Gower peninsula with its stunning scenery and herds of wild ponies grazing by the road side with relatively few cars to get in the way.

San Francisco is without doubt our favourite place to be, but days like today, out on a great bike in the middle of nowhere serve as a great reminder of how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful area.

We arrived at Rhossili without incident, but then disaster struck, the plan was to ride the bridge from the tip of Rhossili to Rhode Island and then travel cross country to San Francisco, hopefully arriving in time to watch the Forty Niners beat the Sea Hawks.

We failed to realise that no such bridge has yet been constructed, we had run out of road six thousand miles short of our target.

We walked as far as the Wyrms Head, taking in the beautiful scenery whilst surreptitiously looking for evidence of bridge construction.

As there was clearly no way to ride across the inconveniently large span of water between Wales and the USA, we chose instead to have lunch at The Worms Head hotel.
The food here was excellent, as was the local beer.

Once done, we again ventured forth, but noting that there had been no progress with regards to bridging the three thousand mile gap between Wales and America, we headed for home.

We may not have made it to San Francisco, but we had a fine day out, and who knows, maybe next time there will be a bridge!

Rhossili Bay 

The Wyrm's Head

The beach where the bridge to America should be

Zeitgeist, San Francisco

                                              click here to see Zeitgeist's web site


As an Englishman and devout biker abroad in a strange place, I have to say that Zeitgeist (on the corner of Valencia and Duboce) was probably one of the biggest culture shocks I have experienced.
Why?, well, it comes down to booze, actually!

Let me explain, if you go to a bikers pub or show etc in the uk, chances are there's going to be a great variety of beers available, and good ones at that.
Zeitgeist also has a wide variety of beers (more than forty, in fact) but also very popular is the Bloody Mary
In the uk, bikers and cocktails generally don't associate with each other

Still, when in San Francisco.....


My,my, suffice to say that a combination of Bloody Mary, a great bar and good people means Zeitgeist is now high on my list of favourite watering holes!

Gail Russell

                                                                       Gail Russell
Artwork of the week time, a pencil sketch this week, again by my father, this one would have been done in the 1940's when dad was in his early twenties.
Gail Russell had a turbulent and tragic life, it seems (click the link below the pic for more information) and died very young due in part to alcohol addiction.
I have posted this picture simply because I think it's a wonderful piece of art, despite the decay to the paper of nearly seventy years hidden in a folder

Union Jack

Union Jack

Today I thought we would have a little British patriotism, so here's the Union Jack, with a little twist.

 So far this design has had something of a  a love it/ hate it reaction from other people, but I had fun designing it, and I like it,and it's MY blog! haha

If you like it, and would like something with it on (ie t shirt, bag etc) click the link below the pic

Bikers Kitchen

Possibly the best place to build your next project, the kitchen, it's warm, there's a fridge for beer, a freezer for parts that need shrinking, an oven for heating parts up ,a table to put the engine on during rebuild time and a sink for degreasing parts not to mention easy access to coffee and food!

In fact, the only possible downside is the potential for a 'what the bloody hell is that bloody heap of scrap doing in my kitchen' reaction from an intolerant life partner.
There is, however, a way around this problem.
Your first sentence is the one that really matters, 'my love, I just wanted to make YOU something special, but there's nowhere to work on YOUR bike outside in the snow and rain, besides, I didn't want your pride and joy to go rusty'

If all is well, work can commence and you can artfully bring your own project into the kitchen in due course( hence the two bikes in the picture)

If this approach is unsuccessful, I suggest either moving the build into the front room or getting a less unreasonable life partner!

Brightona

What a day in Brighton
Fantastic bikes trikes n hotrods, great live bands and someone even remembered to order sunshine and blue skys!

Skull!

Flaming Skull and crossbones

With Halloween fast approaching, I thought it would be timely to add something a little seasonal to the shop, so here's one of my skull designs, as always, this is available on a range of clothes, drink ware , stationary, badges and so forth at my cafe press shop.

You can find it and various others by clicking the link below the picture

Snayke not Snake!

                                                                       SNAYKE

Remember 'Snake', the game that has been ported to every single electronic game playing device known to man and woman?

A simple and yet frustratingly addictive game that has been pretty much done to death, not a lot that you could do to such a basic game, right?

WRONG!

check out 'Snayke' by Alexander Szpakowski, this isn't just another clone, although obviously inspired by the original, this game takes it to a new level (scuse the pun)

Beware, though, addiction may well occur if you play this!.

In a word, it's fiendish, simple to play at first, but it'll keep you amused for a long time trying to twist your mind around the intricacies of the later levels- this is the kind of game that has the potential to turn a sane person into a gibbering recluse hunched over a game console in the corner of his case repeating the mantra 'just one more level' over and over!

Apple maps couldn't find this place, can you?!

                                       Somewhere in Suffolk painted by Geoff Thirlby
Second 'painting of the week' by my dad, this one was painted after he retired, we know it's somewhere in Suffolk, but we don't know exactly where.
If anyone recognises it, I'd love to know where it is.
If you click the link under the painting, you can see a few more of his pictures at my cafe press site.