the Little Duc

She is waiting patiently for me back in the States....  I miss her :(

Ducati Test Drive

My friend Casey from Velvet Oven stopped by yesterday to take the Ducati for a spin....          
He approves!!!

Does this make my ass look big?

After a bunch more welding, grinding, and sanding today I finally got the swing arm and rear tire on the Ducati for the first time ever. Now I can start working on the tail piece and tank!

I've had enough!

I am tired of being secretive about my current Ducati build. The teacher instinct in me wants to share and let people see and learn. It's no fun designing and building in a vacuum which is what I feel these top secret builds become... A sucking vertex your stuck in all by yourself! This being said I welcome all input and advise you guys may have... Continuing to learn is key to me and my creative process so please critique.

So for the past month solid I have been cutting, bending, welding, grinding, and then welding and grinding some more to fabricate the front end of the Ducati. I enjoyed designing and building the girder fork on the Beezerker so much that I decided I wanted to try my luck at it again but this time put all I learned previously into the design of this fork.

The Ducati is a fat tired bobber cafe sort of a bike and being that the front tire is a 160 I needed a design that was going to stand up to such a menacing tire.

What you see here is the product of more hours than I care to recall right now. Today was the first time I ever put the front end on the bike and I have to admit I could not be more excited.

This bike will have no paint on it what so ever so my metal work has to be top notch which I am discovering is easier said than done!

It's actually hard to go home for the night now because all I want to do is finish this thing and ride it :)

Sitting Pretty

I have been making slow but steady progress on both the Ducati project as well as the Triton project. Put the Triton together as a roller for the first time last week and I have to say I am really pleased with it's stance.

Dropping Out!

A while back I drew up and had my friend Casey from Velvet Oven machine up some swing arm parts for the Ducati. At the time I had no idea what the axle adjusters were going to look like but today it came to me in a vision. Okay, maybe it was more like a drawing than a vision but regardless I figured it out. It takes some nerve to take beautifully machined parts like Casey made and throw them on the mill for some free hand machining.

I am really happy with the way things are turning out!

Finally!!!

Got the Ducati frame fully welded this week end :)

The sound of crickets...

That's pretty much all you have heard on this blog for a while but let me assure you that lots and lots is happening!

The Triton and the 900ss projects are moving along well and looking more and more like motorcycles every day. Also working on a line of motorcycle components as well as some new details for the Slayer espresso machine.

I will have much more to talk about in a little bit but for now I must leave you with this little bit:

The Little Bits

I know it has been far too long since I posted but good things are happening and happening so fast I can barely keep track! I am not complaining but I am looking forward to things slowing down a bit after I am back from Quail.

This time last month I traveled down to Portland Oregon with a couple of my good buddies for a week end of great food, cold whiskey, dancing ladies, and lots of rusty little car bits.

The Portland Antique swap meet is a feast for the eyes and I love sifting through table after table of rusty little bits to find gems like these:



From the great little selection I scored I will use this as the headlight of the Ducati and the red lens as the tail light. I have no idea what this light is off of but it looks to be from the 1920's or so. I found a nice little 50watt haligen bulb that poped right into it without modifications. Happy times!!!! :)

I totally cheated!

Yup, you heard me, I cheated!

I am a firm believer that a successful craftsman needs to be able to utilize the tools at hand.

To create my wheeled designs I have been utilizing simple machining and fabrication processes and never any CNC machining. Well that has all changed now!

I have a background in computer design and my day time design job relies heavily on hand sketching and computer drawing in both 2D and 3D. My moonlighting design jobs typically utilize lots of 3D modeling and rapid prototyping processes to help realize the functionality of a design.

Because I seem to spend way too much time in front of a computer I have always welcomed the challenge and physicality of creating pieces with my two hands. I never seem to realize a design that I can not make with my hands. Most times this is just fine but lately I am visualizing more and more details that I find nearly impossible to do freehand.

Being a believer in a craftsman needing to master his tools I see a computer to be no different than a pencil and that there is a time and place for everything. With my current build, the Ducati, I happened upon the perfect element to utilize CNC machining.



A dry clutch Ducati requires a cush-drive and the rear hub I am using had none so what did I do, I designed one. Working around available polyurethane cush-drive bushings I created a 3D AutoCAD drawing that not only hid the cush-drive bushings but spaced the sprocket for perfect chain alignment.



I do know I could have machined this part on the rotary table by hand but I wanted a more flowing and sculptural part that closely matched the original Ducati part. Careful measuring, drawing, and incredibly accurate machining created a perfect part.



Casey, thank you for giving me the opportunity to see this piece come to life. It all went together flawlessly! I couldn't be happier!!!!

Knobbed for my pleasure!

Soon things are going to get pretty exciting with the Ducati build.

Buchanan's has working on my wheels which should be heading back up this way some time in the coming week. My hub and rim combo really threw them for a loop but after some head scratching and a few phone calls they were able to couple them together to create a pretty unique pair of wheels.

I have never built a bike with the type of tires I chose this time around. I chuckle when I think about it because these wheels and tires are pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum from what I did on the Beezerker.

It's all linked...

I am building all the technical parts for the Ducati girder fork and today I put in some long hours machining chunks of mild steel into the top and bottom links. All the milling is 100% manual and my arms are feeling it after a long day like today.


The Beezerker links are aluminum and took about one quarter the time these took me to make. I chose steel this time around because I am using bushings and bearings along with some precision ground shafts in such a way that I will have infinite adjust-ability in the tension of all the moving parts. Since this bike is going to be a daily driver ease of serviceability is a major design factor.

Step #4

Try to keep things moving!



This step has proved to be most difficult these past few weeks. Besides having a nagging cold and a day job to keep happy I have been dealing with major issues trying to source the hubs for this build. I still don't have them in my hands which is making me start to stress my completion date.

Rolled, coped, and tacked in some more tubes today.

Step #3

... Get fabricating!!!


Started the frame this week after a bunch of sketching. Here you can see the down tube getting mitered for the head tube.



The frame is going to have a lugged look to it and should be pretty darn stiff even given the fact it has a single top and down tube.



I am still on the fence as to how much of this top secret AMD build I will be posting but I am feeling like I don't really care who see's the details right now.



The carbs are there as a place holder... still not sure if I will be running 41mm flat slides or some round slides. What do you think?

Step #2

Set up your jig:

Step #1

Find yourself a motor: