Blasting Cabinet

OK so after initially ignoring good advice I finally got round to building a cabinet for the blaster.

I say "I" but I mean me and may dad as he is a master DIY carpenter! Basically constructed the whole thing out of what we had laying around.



Made a hole in the top for an inspection lamp





And a plug in the bottom to sweep it out.



Ta-da!





It has affectionately been dubbed the "tardis". Its 3' sqaure and 4' high, which is probably too big, but better that than too small. Blasting went well, I had previously used fine glass bead which gave a good finish, though not very aggressive. However I now had some more intense sandy type stuff.. (I have no idea what my dad bought!) and it does the job well, leaving a rougher finish which will take paint well.



Its fairly slow going, but I suppose that's to be expected with something as large as an engine - lots of nooks and crannies to blast at! But now I'm set up I will just keep going in and having the odd hour on it.

Fingers crossed I dont fuck the engine!

Blasting testing

So, I had a go blasting the engine outside, and just like I had been told, I blasted through a whole 25kg bag of glass bead in no time!

I sat the engine on a bike lift, and put the whole lot on a big sheet of plastic with a very crude wooden fence around. This allowed me to recycle some of the sand, but then I kept blocking up with large lumps and rain soon ended play altogether.

Even so, when the things was working properly I was getting good results! Only managed the head and a few fins, but I'm pleased with the results.









So... next task is to build some sort of cabinet that will allow me to recycle all of the glass beads. Also I'm thinking of a gauze type filter to remove large bits of dirt etc...

It was a bit of an experiment, so I'm not surprised by the results. Got a good finish, but needs a bit more preparation for actually using the blaster.

Blasting back

Picked up my parts from my uncle who works at Broadblast in Sheffield. They typically do more industrial type stuff, but throw in the occasional bike frame for good measure. I got him to undercoat the frame, fender, and electrics box.


He used some serious North Sea oil rig 25yr guarantee primer so it will never rust haha! Also blasted up the other bits and bobs;



So now I can sort things for Chrome plating. But first I want to blast the engine. My plan is to basically blast it as a complete unit, so I have been bunging up all the holes etc.



I want to do it myself so I can be a bit more careful with where Im pointing the blaster, so I added this little beaut to the shed;



Its just a DIY 10 gallon tank that you can pick up off ebay, also bought a bag of glass bead that will hopefully give me a good finish! Just need to test it on some scrap now and see what kind of finish I can achieve...

All quiet on the shed front...

I've been fairly quiet on here as I haven't been upto much in the shed recently. Got the bike stripped down and dropped the parts off for blasting this weekend.



Also I picked up a leather side bag that my friend made. He only does this as a hobby so I've been pretty impressed with the quality that he has turned out. Though I dont think I could blag him into making another one anytime soon haha ;)





In other news my buddy Steve was harping on at work about lathes so I invited him over to come round and have a play.

And as you know Sunday was the best day of the year so far (weather wise) but me and my dad where stuck inside working all morning!! But we managed a cheeky ride upto Holme Moss in the afternoon to enjoy some of the sunshine

Good times!

Threaded M10 Bungs

Now in stock! I have beefed up the design of these larger fixing points, to make them more suitable for when a bit more strength is required. Such as fixing a brake stay (torque arm) or peg mounting points.

Simply drill a 16mm hole in the frame and the flanged edge means that they will sit proud, ready for welding.

I am currently selling them in sets of 5 for £20 plus postage. Check them out at the big cartel store; http://holmevalleycustoms.bigcartel.com/

I also sell these in the smaller M8 size and other goodies at the shop.

(Also available on ebay, though they cost more to cover the selling fees)

Odd Jobs

Have been making slow progress ticking things off the list.

Previously I had the electrical components rattling round inside and had tried to stop this by filling the spare space with rags - less than ideal! So now I decided to make something a bit more secure. There are basically three main components to secure - the fuse box, boyer box, and starter solenoid.

Basically I started by jamming the boyer box and solenoid as far out of the way as possible, I welded a little threaded bung inside the electrics box (with some difficulty!)



Then I fabbed up a little bracket to hold the boyer box in place. In practice I will line it with rubber to help with vibration.



Both items fixed inside, on the same mounting point, nicely tucked in the back corner;



This left lots of room for the fuse box, and it needs lots of room, as its quite tall, and when you have got all the wires connected it makes it wide too! For this I drilled some holes in the bottom of the tank, and turned up some spacers so that the fuse box would sit up high.



So I haven't actually tried wiring it all up yet, but I'm hoping that those changes will help. I also drilled a few discreet holes in the actual frame for running wires through, rather than having zip ties every six inches. But I forgot to take a picture of them.

Next on the list was the steering lock. As the triumph tank is so wide, the top of the forks currently just clash when on full lock. After a bit of testing I decided that some 2mm spacers would be appropriate and I welded them onto the frame.





Last off was to weld up the threaded connections that I had tacked in earlier for the exhaust mounts.







That pretty much concludes all of the fabrication jobs left on the bike. At the moments its all stripped down ready for the next process which will be finishing. Painting, polishing, plating. Before that though things need cleaning up (groan!) so my first job is to take as much as possible for blasting, and then it can be sorted for painting or plating.

Battery box lid

Here is the electrics box as it stands;



Didnt think that there would be much in here, hence the small lid... but I was wrong! And its difficult getting your fingers in amongst all the wiring. So I chopped it out a bit;



Made a much larger lid to fit it. Originally I had welded a little 'lip' in that the lid could sit on so it would be all nice and countersunk, but this time I just made it sit on top... alot easier!



On the bike...



Im going to add a handle, and also mount the internal components to it. Such as the starter solenoid, boyer box, and fuse box. As before they just rattled around and I stuffed the box with padding to try and stop this. Will hopefully make a much neater wiring setup.