Tuesday, December 3, 2013

1634 Days......

....since my last post. Why so long?
As you all know the economy went into the shitter in 2009 and really it started for me in 2008 when i first  noticed the phone ringing less and less. The wonderful clients who love our custom architectural metal work and our sponsors who help with this hobby run amok decided along with the rest of the world to stop spending money. Who could blame them. So all focus went into keeping the business afloat.
Fast forward to Spring 2010:  A few previous clients and sponsors asked me if we needed help getting the land speed thing going again, i waited about two seconds before responding with a 'what the fuck do you think?' All kidding aside i was incredibly gratefull and thrilled to start the crazy adventure all over again with no time for blogging, only building.
I will be posting photos with comments at least once a week now to get you all up to speed with what has gone down over the last three and a half years with what is the most aerodynamic 125cc partially streamlined motorcycle around.

So we left off with the frame cut in half and mounted into a fixture so we could extend it to reduce frontal area.
We then filled in the middle with some steel tubing, the 'ladder bar' looking thing. Very narrow and very rigid allowing me to bring my knees in very close together to reduce frontal area while still being strong enough to resist any torsional frame flex which might make for a sketchy ride.

A shot from the rear quarter also illustrates the lack of enthusiasm often displayed at 11:00pm on a Tuesday night when you are working for beer and pizza.

Dreaming of 200MPH in a 125cc streamliner.

 Next was a mock up of the bodywork. I cut up the old bodywork as a starting point and added to it with plywood, cardboard and aluminum welding rod. Hot glue holds it all together. I measured all the parts and then drew them up in AutoCad to create some 2D profiles to be used in cutting and carving foam blocks into the shapes to be used for molding the bodywork.

Shot from the rear quarter, it just might be handsome in the end. A reminder to anyone reading this: I find blogging to be tedious at best, but i have had so many requests to document what we have done that i find myself compelled to give it a shot. My apologies for the very basic writing. Enjoy!

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