project: Spitfire

[bikeboy]

i like the fender with the flat part cuz it matches the tank....

well. sort of It would match if it was horizontal, but it's at an angle.

Love that tank and what you've done with it.

ian

 

[gribbs]

I feel like the fender matches the headlight style, but not so much the tank and seat set-up

 

[willdance]

...looking at mini speedos online... found this instead

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250566951595&fromMakeTrack=true#ht_500wt_1182

....That airspeed indicator looks awesome... but getting it to work and finding your actual speed could be tricky... Great concept though!

 

[mysta2]

"Eighty miles an hour in a sixty!? but officer, I swear I had a twenty MPH tailwind!"

 

[rockcitycafe]

"Eighty miles an hour in a sixty!? but officer, I swear I had a twenty MPH tailwind!"

hahah, yeah, it was a neat idea, but I'd need an actual pitot tube somewhere on the bike

 

[rockcitycafe]

updates:

 

[VonYinzer]

Beautiful work. That bike is truly one of a kind...

 

[rockcitycafe]

Beautiful work. That bike is truly one of a kind...

I want to keep it hehe

 

[diesel450]

You should arrange an "accident" in the shop. :

 

[rockcitycafe]

worked on the headlight today, trying a new technique called spin forming, I turned a template from stacked oak ply, in the shape of the bucket I want, then we used the spinning lathe at school to form a blank of aluminum over it, this was the third try with it, and a partial success. the next one should be perfect, this one almost worked out but when we finished the lip cracked due to too much stretching

 

[Big R]

That's pretty sweet. How hot does the aluminum get while you do that? And did you figure out how to stop it from cracking?

 

[rockcitycafe]

the aluminum doesn't get hot at all, I think we can keep it from cracking by changing the working technique a bit to keep it from stretching as much

 

[jay_kent]

When I was in an Industrial Design program we went to a metal spinning place these guys were cranking out parts by the thousands. One guy was doing martini shakers and he did one in under 10 seconds. That's with the setup very cool to watch. His tools were as old as he.

Going to be a cool looking headlight.
There's a real art to metal spinning, wait till you're good enough to roll a bead on the end.

Jay

 

[BCBarker]

I did this on a copper bowl a few year back. Had to anneal the metal to prevent it from cracking. I'm sure if you are not doing this it will help a bunch.

 

[CresentSon]

BC, do you have to retemper after shaping? I have forged knives out of steel, and tempering is pretty straight forward. Would it be the same process with aluminum or copper?

 

[rockcitycafe]

had a few more tries at spinning, learned a little more, etc... i threw up one of the defect buckets for looks

 

[dcmspikes]

holy shit. not sure how ive missed this project. your metal beating skills are amazing. the new headlight look much more proportionate. the exhaust is perfect. this will be BOTM with out a doubt.

 

[Flugtechnik]

Oh man, somehow I lost track of this project. Excellent work brother!

 

[BCBarker]

BC, do you have to retemper after shaping? I have forged knives out of steel, and tempering is pretty straight forward. Would it be the same process with aluminum or copper?

I never re-tempered the bowls after tempering. I spun a lot of copper and as long as I annealed it well before and didn't spin it too thin, I never had a problem with it. The initial annealing seamed to be enough to "loosen" the molecules and no further tempering was needed.

It may help, But I never did it.

FYI - when annealing copper you stop when it's glowing red with the lights off. If it's glowing red with the lights on, you have heated it too much. Not sure about aluminum.

 

[rockcitycafe]

tried aluminum both ways... it's actually really workable either way, turns out my technique was probably wrong, you really need to roll the tool out to the edge of the disk on every pass, then use a return stroke as well... I think the learning curve for this is about the same as it was for sand bending, but in the end it will work out well