Progress update. 05/01/2011
My friends, Just a quick note to let you know that the new production patterns are in the final stages of assembly and sanding/finishing. I must say, in the past weeks, progress was slow due to a rather difficult phase in my personal life. Things seem to be better now and I can devote more of my energies to the project. Thank you all for your continued interest and support. 12 Comments A spine chilling sign from god...creepy! 04/03/2011
 Some time ago, I was milling out one of the pieces of my pattern- a part of one of the cylinder mouths. The wood was a plank of seasoned maple. On the final pass, the chips being thrown up suddenly began to get shiny! I immediately stopped the machine, blew out all the chips and took a closer look. Indeed, buried in the wood was a small metallic blob. I carefully pried it out. It was a BULLET! Part of it had been milled away but enough was left to leave no doubt. Probably a stray from a hunter's rifle long ago. Do you see the deep significance? A BULLET....  A teeth chattering h-h-h-hullo! Did I mention it's freezing here? Temperatures in single digits (Fahrenheit). Yes, it takes some serious grit to keep plugging away at the shop in the evenings...it's very tempting to stay warm at home. But rest assured my friends, I've been busy. Here you see almost all the major bits and pieces for TWO complete sets of casting patterns. I decided to do an extra set just in case. I may also try two different foundries to compare quality. There is still work left- some more small pieces, gluing things together, double and triple checking everything to ensure nothing's missing. But the bulk of the work is here. Any encouraging thoughts and warm messages appreciated in the comments section- they'll surely help me deal with the cold! Thank you all again for your support! Best wishes. Have a great Two Thousand and Eleven! 01/08/2011
  My dear friends, I am absolutely thrilled to tell you that the November issue of RealClassic magazine, published in the UK has a NINE page article I wrote on the project. It is the complete story with lots of pics, thrills, spills, blood and gore. Those of you who'd like to read it, please buy it! For the USA, you can get it from: www.classicbikebooks.com For UK, Europe and rest of the world, you can order it directly from the RealClassic website : www.realclassic.co.uk It is an absolutely delightful magazine, with significant content from reader contributions. I highly recommend subscribing to it. Special thanks to Rowena at RealClassic for all her help and being just wonderful! She didn't snip a single word from my long and painful story! Now that's support you won't find anywhere.     So I'm heading back home on Summit street Monday evening and on an impulse, got on the freeway. Opened her up. The 5 plate clutch, which has bedded in nicely in the past months, aided and abetted the improved transfer of power. The deepening roar sounded absolutely divine. With god as my witness, saw the needle steadily turn all the way to 160kmh, which is as far as the speedo goes. Wish you guys could have a go. Aaaaah. Hi guys, I'll be in India from October 24th till Nov 24th to visit family and breathe in Bullets. Pick up some parts too. Mostly Delhi, a bit of Bombay and if possible, Bangalore and/or Chennai. Looking forward to it! Hi guys. I know, it has been a couple of months since the last post. If you don't hear much from me for a while, then it's quite likely due to me being buried in the workshop, nose to the grindstone, working as hard as I can. Well, it has been a very good couple of months. Firstly, I have been learning CNC programming and now know enough to be able to export my CAD drawings to the CAM software, process the file to output a CNC program, set up and run the machine and also tweak the programs on the fly. This allowed me to go to the workshop (where I work as a machinist) on weekends and evenings and get a good start on the new casting patterns, which are being CNC'd as opposed to the original ones which were entirely handmade. It was a quite an experience to watch the machine cut the part from glued up blocks of seasoned, kiln-dried maple in a few hours with all the geometry, fillets, radii and all, clean and precise and accurate. This would have taken days and days to do by hand. I have to say, it has given me much encouragement to reach this step. The problem with working with CAD software is that you can spend vast amounts of time creating something which basically doesn't exist. It is pixels on a screen and no matter how realistic it looks on that screen, there is a certain feeling of uncertainty and 'unrealness' about it...till you see a tangible, physical object take shape- one you can hold in your hands. It made me wonder if I had wasted a lot of time doing things by hand before- both the wooden patterns and the machining of the castings. But I did learn a lot from the process and no doubt it is helping now. Here's a few images from CNC test pieces-  1. Maple block clamped down and tools ready in holders.  2. The 'inside' of the part is hollowed out.  3. The block is flipped over keeping the geometric center exactly the same. Locating dowels easily allow this. The 'outside' is machined.  4. Three test parts ready in a few hours. I Wish My Brain Had A Neutral Finder. 07/30/2010
What a great life lesson from such a simple little device. How wonderful it would be if my head could just disconnect at will from the constant churning and just coast for a while...perhaps get some sleep. But no. The Bullet is a Wise Woman. | Authortappet dancer ArchivesJanuary 2012 Categories |
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