First Day!

Possibly the worst day of the school year was the day we returned from Thanksgiving break. The Monday following Thanksgiving is always the first day of buck season and although we got that day off from school it also meant that a good part of Tuesday would be spent listening to way too many bullshit stories of how many deer were seen, shot, missed, and tied across the hood of the old mans chevy citation.

However, by far the best story I ever had to listen to was told that exact Tuesday morning of my sophomore year while sitting with the usuals at the cafeteria tables prior to home room. 

Stories were already flowing when Joe came in and said you guys have to hear this.

Joe & Kent were good friends and that year they had decided to hunt together. Shortly after arriving at the spot they decided to split up, see what they could scare up, then meet up for lunch and a game report.

Shortly after separating Joe was feeling the effects of a good PA hunters breakfast and found a good tree for a squat. Finishing his business Joe realized he was unprepared & needed something to wipe with, after very little thought Joe ended up sacrificing a glove, buttoned up and pushed on.  Lunch time rolls around Joe & Kent meet at the rendezvous point,

Kent immediately asks Joe "see anything?" 

Joe says "Nah nothing, You?" 

Kent replies "not a damn thing, but (reaching in his pocket) it's your lucky day. Check it out, I found your glove.

Nice Handiwork.

Good Stuff from Black Sheep bikes.

22lbs at 325° for 4 1/2-5 hours, baste like a MoFo.

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday and I dig cooking the feast , over the years we've got it pretty dialed & I'm already excited to eat. We're going to have a house full and for that I'm thankful.

Have a good day everyone

Tank You...

A while back 4Q Max posted this crazy tank he was about to paint for Nao's 71 Triumph & I was blown away and quickly learned it was the work of Brandon Casquilho over at Mullins Chain Drive

I track down Brandon and he agrees to do something, but I'm unsure of what I really want. after some back forth I order a repop set of 3.5 fat bobs and get them up to Mullins as decided.

Originally we agreed on just a simple axed tank, keep both fill necks & Brandon does that, sits it on his Panhead , sends me pics. I hated it and return a photoshopped pic of what I'm thinking. Now it's start over & move to a new shop, time goes by and he emails me saying I think I figured something out you'll be into. by this time I had pushed that bike to the side and was working on the SR500 to take to Chop Meet. Somehow I talked him into doing an overnight job on the SR tank and while I was up there make the decision on the tank for the Pan.  Personally I think the Ebay mustang tank he reworked makes that SR & we also decide on the final touch for the tank below. 

I'm going to keep the stock front frame mount and clip the rear, get the whole thing to T-Bone for mounting and petcock location then prep for paint. 

Viva La Mullins! Now Give him your business as I talked him into quitting his job during this & I  don't want to lose sleep over it.

Packages!

I's got packages from Rouser Rob & Scott Towne, Thanks Guys, You Rock!

Scott when I saw this the other day I thought of you.

Xian Leather

Initially I contacted Christian @ Xian because I liked the shape of the seat he was running on his personal bike and I figured it would be a good start for the shape I was about to attempt. Christian sent me to Kevin Baas instructed me to ask for the "Xian pan" at this point I had just sold my Road King and allocated some of that cash towards this project so I figured that this would be a good bike to have a Xian seat but other than the shape I was unsure of what I wanted. After going over final dimensions with Christian I cut the seat pan down quite a bit changed the overall contour and flattened it out some. 

Then I ran across the photo of the Trump below with the tuck & roll job, I really liked the army canvas sackcloth seat he had done for McGoo's Smoking Gun & thought the two ideas would come together nicely. 

For whatever sadistic reason Christian agreed to do it. So back in June I sent the seat pan & artwork for the bottom side tooling. A few days later I get email photos of the completed underside, Awesome...   At that point Christian tells me he has a guy to do the tuck & roll panel so he sends it off, when it returns he hates it and wants it done right. This is when he hunts down an old time upholstery guru, learns the real way of tuck & roll, buys a sewing machine, and begins to master the skill. The first panel takes him 6 hours but right at the last little bit she goes sour. I get the email with the news and that he's going for it again in a couple days when his fingers are no longer sore. The next round was success and is what you see here. 

I'm just blown away with the level of commitment, the craftsmanship speaks for itself and now Xian offers not only fine hand tooled seats but upholstered too. I've thanked him a hundred times but Thanks again Christian and I have a bunch of other ideas if you game.

McGoo's seat

When I bought this bike it was a runner so I decided to ride it around the neighborhood for few days just so I'd have a feel or comparison to whatever it ended up like. Well I put just over a hundred miles on it before Bob & I tore it down, the more we took off the more we discovered how many really important parts were "fingertight" ,to the point that I felt blessed to be in one piece...

Fingertight

Over the past few days A couple of real exciting bits showed up for the FL project, first my seat from Christian at Xian Leather and secondly the tank via metal Jedi Brandon who is Mullins Chain Drive.

I cannot speak highly enough for these two craftsmen, they both put up with my wacky ideas and mid project changes, in the end both produced art. I know the pictures are bad I'll take some more, individually & also once things are actually mounted, not just sitting on the bike. I also need to explain the lengths both went through to produce each piece. Until then look at these.

On My Short List

Bubble Visor, always some cool bikes and or links to cool bikes

F'n Mids!

I've been wanting to be able to make this post for weeks now and finally I can. 

I can't remember why but I really wanted to tackle the challenge of making mid controls off the rear floorboard mounts work, and work well(if that makes sense?). I put together a general direction with a lot of inspiration from the foot controls on Calebs bike "Raped Grape" I bent up the posts and the floorboard mount caps but it quickly became too much for me to pull off with my drill, grinder, and woodworking sanders. Then I ran across a Jockey Journal introduction post from a local machinist who was building some bikes so I contacted him in hopes of some help. Well that was back in May or June and since then we've became good friends, both bought, built, and sold a few bikes but it wasn't until yesterday we finally got these mids working and ready to be cleaned up, finish welded, plated and put to use. 

So Big Thanks to My friend Pat for the help and for putting up with my picky ass. 

Check out Pats skills.

Kymberly Jane

A few weeks ago I mentioned in a post how much I've enjoyed Chopper Dave posting "Kymberly Jane Wednesdays" and VOILA this link shows up in my inbox. 

Enjoy....

Lifted from the Ottonero blog

Ken Block Gymkhana Practice

I've pretty much lived vicariously through Ken for the 13 years I've know him and it still goes strong... Ken This shit looks FUN !

BMW the slow route

A few people have asked how Pauly's BMW is coming along? Well, kind of slow actually.

I really try to work on it only when Paul's around & with his schedule that gives us a few hours a week and we've missed a few weeks since we tore into it, but I'm pleased so far. The forks, triples and front brake are completely rebuilt, shaved, lowered, polished and bolted on. The rims and hubs are still at powder coat having "out gas" problems, which is different than the out gas I sometimes have. Where as mine is usually diet related I've been told when baking  powder coat the heat causes impurities in the older/used metal to surface & bubble, media blast and redo until the problem is solved, currently we're on try #3 and everything should headed to Wheel Works to be built, mounted, & balanced this week. 

Basement Lambo Build

Inspired by the Movie Cannonball Run, this guy got busy.

Link 1

Link 2

DRZ 400 SM supermoto super moto jump

DRZ Ryan was telling us about this clip. Front wheel high says this guy needs to wick it up a bit but still looks fun.

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