The axle plates have arrived, and they are perfect!
I designed them, then took my drawings to Graeme at
Smith Metal Fabrications ltd where they were made up.
Ive used this company before for small jobs,and have always been very happy with the results.
In the case of my axle plates, they managed to squeeze the manufacturing of them into a very busy work schedule and still provide a top quality item.
It's rare to find a local company that although busy will take the time to do small jobs for someone such as myself working on a small project these days.
The quality of their work speaks for itself, and their prices are very fair, I would highly recommend them.
The plates themselves are precision cut from 10mm steel plate, nice and strong!
They are different from most axle plates due to the tag at the rear, the intention is that the plates will slot inside the existing swinging arm and the original wheel spindle plus two additional threaded bars will hold everything tightly in position whilst welding thereby minimising distortion from the heat produced.
Here they are slotted loosely in place to give an idea of how it will all work.
When I am ready to weld the new tubes in place, the wheel spindle bolt will go through the hole to its right, pinning the plates in place and two threaded bars will go in the place of the spindle slot in the new plate, preventing any sideways movement from the heat of welding.
Once the top and bottom rails (bottom rails not shown) are welded in place, the swinging arm will be slid forward and removed then the tags will be cut off leaving a nice tidy stretched rigid rear section
After that, its just a matter of adding bracing and gusset plates (heavy ones in this case as the bike will eventually grow a sidecar!)
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