Weekend in Brooklyn

In more moto-related news, I went to down to Brooklyn last Saturday for the first annual Brooklyn Invitational Kustom motorcycle show. We spent a few hours taking in the vibe with a solid line up of bikes outside and a small but impressive gallery of custom scoots inside. It was held at the Autumn Bowl, which is a sick skater-built space, with some very interesting architecture. the pics here aren't so hot, but the photo coverage at hated of the world tell the story well. The rest of my afternoon were spent well on the water with some friends, and taking a solid hike through Williamsburg to the train, and running the gauntlet of Chinatown as well. If I'm in New York and I appear to be anything less than pumped about living, check my pulse, Because I truly love it there.











OH YEAH.

Lars Anderson European motorcycle show

Aaron, and I rode out to the Lars Anderson auto museum and historical grounds for the annual European motorcycle show. There was a full representation of vintage bikes with plenty of modern riders and vendors, including the lusty Ducati test drive. The high pitched spinning of dry clutches followed the riders as they took a short tour through some of the more secluded winding roads of Boston's Brookline neighborhood. So I drooled much, saw some old friends and some new tricks, and once again lit the fire to build myself a more formidable two wheeled motor machine.

LEARNING CONE

My good friend Aaron from TriMount Iron procured some nice 18 gauge sheet for me and I began the work of cutting and forming the patterns. This kind of work is best done with 18-20 gauge sheet metal, because you really have to do much of the work by hand. the shapes are too tight to form with your average sized slip-roller. So the technique comes down to bending by hand and hammering around a round mandrel about the size of the smaller opening of the cone. I then made sure each end of the cone was sized per my drawings and then tack welded those ends in place. after the tacks are on you can be a little more picky about having round ends and flat mating surfaces. Then weld the seams.
Final installation to come next week
Beginnings.

Individual Sections (with tapered header and two-stage diffuser)

Mock Up

Expansion Chamber Design and Templates:

This is a project I have been reading about and pondering for some time.. my first attempt was wildly hair-brained and hacked. I guessed on a bunch of figures than decided that air-forming would be easy and fun... That turned out to be a nice wind chime the first time around. Now, I have a thrice-read chapter of A.G. Bell's two stroke tuning under my belt, and I know more functions on a scientific calculator than I ever did before. Watching the guys at the Moto-Matic moped shop and checking in on an old pal Josh, from Ohio really inspired me to get moving on this, and i'm excited to try different designs in the future.

Homework for the past two weeks:



Mock-Up and Templates


So the next step is finding and cutting sheet metal, and ordering tubing for the header and stinger..