Metal Doctor

So I'm pretty new to Kiwi Biker and this blog stuff, but after doing a welding job for a guy recently on his Suzuki TL1000S I realised that there are lots of guys out there who are modifying bikes, or giving it a bit too much at the weekend and cracking frames etc, that need a welder with a knowledge of bikes!

I've always been about bikes - from schoolboy motocross as a kid in the Isle of Man, watching the TT, riding the course, doing track days, racing Her Majesty's highways in the UK on my Fireblade and SP1, classic bike stuff with my old man's MV August's and brit bikes to more recently riding the NZ dirt and sand on my KTM 525.

But as much as I'd like to ride bikes all day long, I've got to earn some money, so I do that as a welder. I've been in the welding trade for about 15 years - structural, residential, steel, aluminium, stainless etc and I've recently set up my own company as a mobile welder; Metal Doctor. I'm fully kitted out - van, TIG/MMA set, generator etc and fully certified in steel, aluminium, stainless. When I looked around Auckland there seemed to be lots of engineering/fab shops, but it seemed really hard to find a welder that you could call on to come round your house and fix your broken gates, weld a patch on your boat, weld up a cracked frame on your bike, or weld up whatever project you've got going on in the garage at the moment!

So, I thought I'd post the bike weld jobs I do on here. Motorcycle frames can be tough to weld because of the different metals they use, from chromolly steel to cast aluminium. But with the right equipment, knowledge and skill it can be done. You dont have to be a genius to know a bad weld, they look like shit! and if they look bad i can guarantee they are bad! and you dont want your pride and joy falling apart because of bad workmanship.

The first welding job i had when i set up this business was a cracked upper suspension mount on a '97 Suzuki TL1000S. Now these bikes are known to have frame cracking issues because of the rotary damper and suspension design.

You can see the cracks in the left hand photo, they go from the bolt holes right out to the edge of the mount. i used an AC advanced square wave TIG set with 4043 aluminium filler rod to repair the cracks and then added som extra weld metal to the mount to give it some extra strength. then smoothed it all out to get rid of any stress points.