Winter Layup - 1995 Ducati 900 Supersport

[pete376403]

. Filing and fitting is what you do when you've got a bench vice and loads of time. .

When I'm filing something and knowing that there is a better way, I recall the story about Burt Munro filing con-rods out of tractor axle stock and think that some guys did a lot more with a lot less.

[OddDuck]

When I'm filing something and knowing that there is a better way, I recall the story about Burt Munro filing con-rods out of tractor axle stock and think that some guys did a lot more with a lot less.

True - it is one of those jobs that you just have to roll your sleeves up and do.

I note stuff like this down because I want to keep going with this kind of work. Filing and fitting is fine for a one-off but there's no way I want to do that for every job. My guideline for buying tools is set by need: first time, improvise or borrow, hard yakka if I have to. Second or third time, just go shopping and cough up the readies, buy something that makes the job easy, because otherwise I'm doing it the hard way forever.

Rant to follow, your comment has touched a nerve...

I reckon that something we've got a real problem with in this country is a poverty mentality concerning engineering / mechanical workshops or garages. We insist on doing everything cheap as chips and hard, hard, hard, because people who can produce results through adversity are heroes. Making it easy for yourself is somehow cheating. If anyone complains about it then we tell them to take a concrete pill and harden the fuck up.

Don't work off a bench, work off the floor. Don't take five minutes to set up, and definitely don't tool up for the job, just have at it immediately with whatever is to hand - even if that takes double or triple the time. Take weeks working like crazy in order to save ten bucks. Never tidy up, just work around the mess somehow. Let tools get blunt and rusty, just push harder. Work in the dark, work in the cold, have dirt and oil spills everywhere, go looking for every tool for every next bit of work because the tool is lost in the clutter. Keep trucking. Go hard. Push through.

It's retarded. But it's what we do. We just don't seem to have any idea that it could be better.

I do most of my work alone because I'm fucked off with having to fight with people about my approach vs this culture. There's always someone who got a job done under worse conditions. Good on them, but is it really appropriate to compare yourself to that? Is it about beating the adversity, or do you want to get the result?

Right, rant off, I'm going to prepare some tube pieces for practise at frame welding.

[Ocean1]

Filing and fitting is fine for a one-off but there's no way I want to do that for every job. My guideline for buying tools is set by need: first time, improvise or borrow, hard yakka if I have to. Second or third time, just go shopping and cough up the readies, buy something that makes the job easy, because otherwise I'm doing it the hard way forever.

I've seen nothing on the market between cheap shit that doesn't work very well and very pricy CNC professional tools.

There's a few tube notchers on the market that work around hole saw cutters. I don't like them, I've spent too much time doing that in the mill, fucking every 3rd or 4th tube and a lot of hole saws.

From a standing start you could do a lot worse than buying a second hand drill/mill and adding a home made angle plate with a 3 jaw chuck mounted on a flange, marked in degrees.

For a cutter I'd look at rota-broaches for nominal dia stuff and add a cheap boring head to get the weird sizes.

[OddDuck]

I've seen nothing on the market between cheap shit that doesn't work very well and very pricy CNC professional tools.

There's a few tube notchers on the market that work around hole saw cutters. I don't like them, I've spent too much time doing that in the mill, fucking every 3rd or 4th tube and a lot of hole saws.

From a standing start you could do a lot worse than buying a second hand drill/mill and adding a home made angle plate with a 3 jaw chuck mounted on a flange, marked in degrees.

For a cutter I'd look at rota-broaches for nominal dia stuff and add a cheap boring head to get the weird sizes.

Thanks mate, that idea about the mill, angle plate and chuck is definitely the way to go.

I'd bought one of the Eastwood tube notchers a while ago and it's as you say, it's just not up to its job.

[OddDuck]

Some further work over the last few days... after about four hours of filing and fitting, the cross brace tube now goes into place. There are some gaps, I'll have to see how I am with filling voids while welding.

While fitting I noticed that the frame is cracked through the weld bead at the top RH front support post, as well as at the buttress plate end - hairlines are visible in the photo. It's clearly been flexing quite badly, I'll have to go over the bead again.

I also made up some short practice pieces, fishmouthing by simply cutting a 90 degree notch with a hacksaw. It's rough but should be good practice. Some of these mount at 45 degrees, so there's a tight V to get into for the weld. I'd been told earlier that this was difficult to do, I have to do this kind of thing with the reinforcement, so I'd better get techniques and settings straight before trying the actual frame.

Cleaning of millscale was done in the bench vise with a looped and hand-tensioned strip of wet'n'dry, with CRC.

[Kickaha]

While fitting I noticed that the frame is cracked through the weld bead at the top RH front support post, as well as at the buttress plate end - hairlines are visible in the photo. It's clearly been flexing quite badly, I'll have to go over the bead again.

Have your engine mount bolts ever come loose?

[OddDuck]

Yesterday's effort was mostly the construction of a vacuum platen, for an attempt at vacuum forming. A platen is simple enough, it's just a box with one side pattern-drilled with regularly spaced holes and a hole for a vacuum cleaner of some kind.

The idea is that a sheet of plastic is clamped in a frame, oven-heated until it's workable, then the framed plastic is draped over a mould placed on top of the platen. The frame is pushed down until it meets the platen edges, the vacuum turned on, and the plastic is sucked down over the mould.

There's quite a few vids on Youtube, this is quite close to the sort of thing I want to be making (note that they're forming 6.35mm ABS):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsdNZFMplyM

A mate and I knocked up something quite a bit rougher, out of some deck plank remainders and some plywood that was spare. Haven't got the frame sorted out yet - also need a mould and the raw material plastic sheet. If I'm making an alternative battery box then this is the way I'd prefer to do it. The camera struggled a bit with the light which is why the photo is orange.

[OddDuck]

Have your engine mount bolts ever come loose?

Thanks but no, engine bolts were still tight when I did this work. I think it's purely flexing of the frame under braking / cornering forces / potholes / returning to my driveway backwards.

I don't like the last one but the driveway and garage are so tight that it's either back in or back out.

[OddDuck]

Tonight's effort - clamp frames for the plastic sheet.

The idea behind the frames is that the plastic sheet is clamped between them during heating and forming. The frame then allows handling of the sheet without it sagging everywhere, and also makes a reasonably airtight bond to the vacuum box.

Bulldog clips (or similar) are used quite widely, almost all of the at-home hobby kits use them. Clips on all sides instead of hinges + latches is a quick way to allow for different sheet thicknesses.

The box isn't flat, the frames aren't exactly free from warping. I'll have to find some weatherstrip for the frames to sit on.

[Madness]

I also made up some short practice pieces, fishmouthing by simply cutting a 90 degree notch with a hacksaw. It's rough but should be good practice. Some of these mount at 45 degrees, so there's a tight V to get into for the weld. I'd been told earlier that this was difficult to do, I have to do this kind of thing with the reinforcement, so I'd better get techniques and settings straight before trying the actual frame.

Consider getting a stubby series gas lens kit, they go for about $30 for a kit with one gas lens body & gasket, 2 collets & cups. Fits WP17 & WP26 TIG Torches and allows you to stick your tungsten out an extra 1/2" but with no loss of gas coverage.

[OddDuck]

Consider getting a stubby series gas lens kit, they go for about $30 for a kit with one gas lens body & gasket, 2 collets & cups. Fits WP17 & WP26 TIG Torches and allows you to stick your tungsten out an extra 1/2" but with gas coverage loss.

Thanks, will do - bought the TIG today but suffered detail overload from the relentless tips and tricks from the sales guy... They're just around the corner though, no biggie to go back.

BOC are doing a deal with a year's rent on a D cylinder of argon with one refill for $220, anyone know if this is good?

Also got told that it's possible to fit a 15A socket to the wall without special wiring - the TIG needs this, standard 10A fittings won't cut it. I think it's a bit optimistic that it could be that easy, but on the off chance, has anyone done this and how did it go?

[Madness]

Also got told that it's possible to fit a 15A socket to the wall without special wiring - the TIG needs this, standard 10A fittings won't cut it. I think it's a bit optimistic that it could be that easy, but on the off chance, has anyone done this and how did it go?

I'm lead to believe that providing the flex in the wall is 2.5mm, the face plate and breaker can be upgraded from 10 amp to 15. Check with Spyda.

BOC are a bunch of cunts. Check out EZI Sawp for an alternative. http://eziswapgas.co.nz/

Pics of the new welder are compulsory.

[OddDuck]

I'm lead to believe that providing the flex in the wall is 2.5mm, the face plate and breaker can be upgraded from 10 amp to 15. Check with Spyda.

BOC are a bunch of cunts. Check out EZI Sawp for an alternative. http://eziswapgas.co.nz/

Pics of the new welder are compulsory.

Asked the sparkies at work about the faceplate, they'd said it was OK to do it. Landlord (understandably) wants a signed sheet for the work, so no DIY, but he's cool with me organising a sparkie myself and going ahead as and when suits me. Sweet.

Had a look at Eziswap and also phoned to check gas prices. I can see why people want to move away from the BOC model, if you're doing intermittent work from G bottles then it's Eziswap all the way. For what I'm doing at the moment though BOC are actually looking alright.

Eziswap: $499 D bottle purchase (full of course), $150 gas for refill.

BOC: $220 D bottle rent for 1 year, 1 refill included.

There are other sizes of course with prices going up to match... right now I need to practise and repair one frame though, that's all. Cash is starting to run tight. I learned the hard way with fixing the car that when cash runs out, the work stops. The BOC offer will get me started so that's probably how I'll go.

Photos as requested:

[Ocean1]

Asked the sparkies at work about the faceplate, they'd said it was OK to do it. Landlord (understandably) wants a signed sheet for the work, so no DIY, but he's cool with me organising a sparkie myself and going ahead as and when suits me. Sweet.

Had a look at Eziswap and also phoned to check gas prices. I can see why people want to move away from the BOC model, if you're doing intermittent work from G bottles then it's Eziswap all the way. For what I'm doing at the moment though BOC are actually looking alright.

Eziswap: $499 D bottle purchase (full of course), $150 gas for refill.

BOC: $220 D bottle rent for 1 year, 1 refill included.

There are other sizes of course with prices going up to match... right now I need to practise and repair one frame though, that's all. Cash is starting to run tight. I learned the hard way with fixing the car that when cash runs out, the work stops. The BOC offer will get me started so that's probably how I'll go.

Photos as requested:

A rebranded Jasic, I have one kicking around somewhere, not a bad machine. The helmet might be an issue if it's a cheapish auto. TIG arc is fairly soft, cheap auto helmets struggle to switch reliably.

I hope you asked BOC for their very best price, I got seriously pissed with their rep a few years ago when he called wanting to know why I hadn't bought any gas for a couple of years. The last G size argon they'd sold me had been $395, when their price to the big outfits was $58. After some fairly frank and wide ranging discussion on the topic we eventually came to an arrangement much closer to the latter.

[Madness]

A rebranded Jasic...

Close but not quite. It's a Riland and rumor has it that BOC have fallen out with them big time, hence their recent clearance pricing.