Etching Tank

Tonight I put together the tank I'm going to use for the brass etching. There's a wooden base in the bottom of the tank that the negative brazing rod is sitting on, soldered to the black wire. The positive brazing rod is suspended over the brass to generate the charge and is connected to the red wire. The next step is getting the designs printed out and the brass cleaned and prepped.

Mirrors

Over the weekend I installed the "helping-hands" on the bars which will act as my mirror mounts. I drilled through the pipe and bolted the mounts in, hopefully they'll be strong enough hold the larger mirrors I have once everything is tightened down. Also, I found a cool horn to mount on the bars as well, for that extra eclectic look.

As for the mirrors themselves, we had a pair laying around the garage, but they were pretty rusty so I've been soaking them in rust-remover. This stuff is amazing, it eats right through rust without touching anything else AND it's reusable. Bad ass.

The last thing I started this weekend was construction on what I call "DaVinci wings," inspired by schematics of Leonardo's designs for flying machines, out of an old umbrella. I'm going to sew some canvas panels between the arms, add some starch, then attach them behind the seat somehow. They should look pretty sick!

Total Time...

I was wondering how much time I had spent up to this point on construction. I average 2-3 hours a night M-Th, plus I'd guess a good 8-10 per weekend which puts me at about 115 hours for 6+ weeks of fabrication, sketching, and design work so far. I'm thinking I could be wrapping up the construction process in the next few weeks and I am hoping mid to late July I'll start breaking the thing down to prep the frame for paint.

List of things to do, in no particular order:

• Wiring the electrical system
• Mount and install the gauges (once they arrive)
• Finish up dashboard details
• Mirrors
• Grips/throttle accents
• Water tank for steam part (to be described later ;)
• Electro-etching of brass pieces, installing them once complete
• Install 80cc kit
• Install new carb
• Install new pipe
• Pedals
  

Control Box & Mount - Nearly Finished

I spent the weekend and the last few days putting together the rail that will hold the fairly hefty control box against the tank. You can see all the little details in these shots, and the coolest part is that the front screw of the compass actually hold the entire lid in place, so it can be removed if necessary.

The rails came off of an old brass fireplace screen that I bent to shape to follow the curve of the tank. The trick is that I can't actually drill in to the tank to mount the whole thing without worrying about sealing it back up, so I've devised a way to use some mounts at the bottom to bolt in to the frame, a bracket around the gas nozzle to hold most of the weight, and two mounts at the top (tonight's project) to secure it to the frame up there.

Hopefully after tonight I'll have the whole piece mounted and get to wiring up the lights!

Goldmine

I was working the night before last on the control box and I was feeling like I was a little low on junk parts. I stopped by a few thrift stores on my way home and found a pair of gems: an old sewing machine and a slide projector.

After taking them apart (which took a hell of a lot longer than I anticipated) I found some really awesome components to use. The sewing machine had tons of little linkages and arms which I've got on the control box now, interconnecting with the sundial compass I installed.

Also, the projector had a couple really cool lenses I think I can use on a light or two and one diamond of a find: this small rotary fan! I have no idea where it's going to go, but it's going somewhere. I was considering putting it on my carb's air-intake but there's so many possibilities!

Dashboard and Switches

I'm getting close to doing the wiring for the bike so I've started working on the dash and control box which will have my light and kill-switch controls. I've mounted my switches in to the box (the status LEDs are next) and modified the inside to be easy-opening.

The dash, as you can see, is kind of 2-leveled with a slope connecting the two pieces. When I get the rest of my gauges (which unfortunately could be a month away) I'll be finishing that piece up. But since they are on such a delay I may cut some PVC to size and finish the mountings before then.

Weekly Progress

This week has been really busy and I haven't gotten as much done as I'd like to have, but I did happen to finish the tail-light assembly. You can see all the finished details here. I also got my battery, LEDs and sockets today, all of which should fit perfectly. Still waiting on my beefy 42 LED cluster head-light but that's ok, there's always more to do...

One such task is the dash/top-end of the bike. I got one of my three gauges so I've been playing with cardboard to mockup how they will mount in a kind of dash display. This part has to be really cool since the focus is right here while riding, so I'm taking some time to sketch up some ideaas this weekend.

I also put together the designs for the brass plates I'll be electro-etching with copper sulfate. I've added the brass color for effect, but basically all the black will be "eaten" away by the chemical process leaving a cool 3D effect. I used high-rez photos of gears to make it seem like there's inner workings inside the bike. I've never done anything like this part before, so it'll be interesting! I'm hopeing to print these out full-scale and tape them to the bike for one more fitting and look-see over the weekend.

Rear End

I received the little trunk that will serve as my battery box got it mounted, and I've started putting together the tail and brake-light assembly which you can see here. The brake light is similar to the spotlight up front but I tried to make it a bit different with the little rails. There are bolts through the frame holding the light and box firmly so I just need to finish mounting the bottom of the tail and add some details to the lamp itself.

Also, I've ordered all my electrical components so Tyler and I will be starting on that pretty soon.

Finished Headlight

I spent the weekend on small-scale details to really put the finishing touches on the headlight. As you can see, I've added some 'punk ornamentation as well as the lower spotlight that will house a powerful LED to help spot potholes and such at night.

Here's the detail of the spotlight, made from a light socket, over-sized carb manifold and some little parts I had from the set of trumpet parts I bought on ebay.

I'm really happy with the way this piece turned out. It's one of the main focal points on a moped and I'm glad it stands on its own. Some friends we're hanging out at the house and one of them said "That thing looks like a time machine..."

Mission accomplished.

Headlight Process Photos

This weekend I worked on both building my new headlight and doing some maintenance on my ride-around bike, my WWII themed Puch Maxi. Here's some process photos for the headlight:

First, on either side of the light there were different panels. One had an extra pane of glass, the other a double thick brass wall. To make them symmetrical, I knocked out the glass on one, then cut out and ground down the edges of the metal on the other, leaving two holes.

Then, as you can see above, I used wood blocks made for door moldings as the side pieces. I drilled holes in those, epoxied conduit pipe in them and add the supporting brass hardware.

The green arm (part of an antique mole trap) was used to mount the springs by drilling support holes in to the frame. The (almost) finished product turned out to be the perfect size and shape, and after a little bending and boring, the original headlight mounts were reused to mount to the bottom.

Just for fun I mounted up all the parts I have so far and I gotta say, it's looking pretty punk!