Not much to report the past few days.

So have a look at these!

My old blog  had a lot of boobs posted every day around 6AM. Well, I see no reason not to include a set or two here as long as it has something to do with bikes and or metal casting. 

Got a cool email from across the pond yesterday.

Jonathon Liddle of England sent me pix of a few cool Triumph covers he's been making. Honestly, the more I look at them, the more I like em! Especially the points cover with the skull. I'm not one for skulls on anything, but this is bad ass!

If you would like one of Jon's covers, ya can get them from his UK eBay. Links below.  

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Triumph-Points-Cover-Custom-Chopper-Bobber_W0QQitemZ140546712505QQihZ004QQcategoryZ10486QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ht_500wt_1156

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140549303512&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_1156

If you have, or know someone who is casting their own motorcycle stuff and would like to see it here on the blog, email me @ bluecollarmoto@aol.com and I'll post them up. 

Thanks Jon!

Progress!

 This is going to look sooo good!

Now that its done raining for a few days, and the sun is out from time to time, I'm able to put some coats on the damn seat. Added the plastic mesh over the rest of the seat today. Dried up enough in the sun for me to even put a second coat on. Going to let that dry over night. Need it to be dry enough now to sand. Changed the front. Decided to fill it in now instead of adding a pad plate later. May still need the pad plate, but it will be better like this to mount up to the glass seat.   

Cafe Scrambler Seat. "Let the carving begin"

From this,

To this. 

I'm happy with the way its looking! 

What a mess on the floor!

Marked the high spots, resharpened the knife, and cut em all off.

Done carving! I was a bit nervous about the carving. I'm no sculptor. This was as easy as eating pancakes though. I only cut myself once when the knife was getting dull. Gotta have some blood with every project to keep it real!

First thin coat of drywall mud. Like frosting a cake.

This morning I went out and added a second coat of mud. Things were not as dry as I had hoped from last night. Looks like its done raining for a while. I may bring it up and put it out on the patio table in the sun. I also added a layer of plastic mesh over the seat area. One of these days, when its dry, I'll trim off the excess mesh, and add more to the sides and hump. Starting to look like a cafe seat! Stoked!!! I still have a good 1/4" of mud to float.

This tank will look BAD ASS in aluminum!

I took this pic at last years VVMC party. I don't know for sure, but if its not an original race tank, then its probably a repop made by my friends over at Air-Tech. http://www.airtech-streamlining.com/

Ive posted about them a few times over on my old blog. http://newbluecollarmoto.blogspot.com/ They make about every race faring, tank, and seat combo you can imagine for every make of bike on the planet! They use a high end jell coat sprayed on the mold to get some super high quality parts. 

Why am I giving a shout out to the competition you may ask? 

Because, they make some great stuff, but not in aluminum. I plan to be making my custom seats in fiberglass as well as aluminum. (not anything they make) I plan to do some racing tanks in aluminum. A few mods here and there I'm sure from what they offer. Like with the tank pictured above. I would move the fuel cap to the right hand side. On a race bike it doesn't matter since the bikes are placed on stands when parked. I'm making stuff for bikes on the street though. Kickstands on the left, gas caps on the right. In Ca, (and other states) ya are not allowed to use a glass tank anymore on a street bike. The pump gas eats it up. Now with ALUMINUM, ya can run what ya brung anywhere! 

I'm already wanting to set up a foam plug for this tank! Gotta finish what Ive already started first though.

So to answer my question about why I would give a shout out to my competition. They are not competitors. They are people I have a ton of respect for, and I wont be making the same stuff they are.

Check em out and drool over the pix!

I do often.

Bike porn!

Making the Scrambler Seat Plug

Here she is with the $$$ foam from the hobby supply store, stuck to the tin backing with contact spray on glue/cement. I just cut the foam out rough at this point. I should of left myself a 1/2" less than I did around the outside. I'll have to remove that much to give the joint compound room to be spread on. First time is always a learning experience. 

Here's a view of the wood runners I made this morning that set the seats profile. If I had gone with the styrene foam, I would of just had to carve it to the proper profile. I like this better. Less room for sculptor error.

Now to let the contact cement set up on the runners. I also have some screws holding it all together. I'll start carving the basic shape out of the foam tonight! Hope I get a chance to spread on the first coat of joint compound tonight as well. I should probably be using something harder than the joint compound to form the outside shape, but it sands easy. The plug only has to last long enough for me to make the mold. Once the mold is made, I make the seat pattern out of glass, and can always make more molds as needed from my master pattern. 

Loose weight with Blue Collar Moto

Before

(fat chick holding factory fat bob tanks)

After

(hot chick holding my aluminum tank)

Take some pounds off your bike with aluminum or fiberglass parts from Blue Collar Moto.

Haha. Came up with the idea for my 1st magazine add campaign this morning. Had to write it down while its fresh in my mind, so here it is. Gotta just figure out if they should be topless in the add or not? Also, should I have them wearing something like a Rat Fink mask? Creativity is blocked only by never ending options.

Pix coming soon! Soon as I can make my first tank...

Been working on a pattern for the Scrambler cafe seat project the past few days.

Takes some time. I wound up with two patterns. One that can be bolted up to the factory frame using the stock mounting hinge and lock set up, and another one that would require the cutting off of all factory brackets. The first one that uses the factory stuff had to be a bit fatter than I wanted, so I made an alternative seat set up.

No plug pix yet.

Sportster seat.

When I do a Sportster seat it will be like the one on the old XR750s. Not like the new XR1200s Harley has hardly put any effort into.

Definitely NOT one like this!

Getting geared up to make some seat molds.

(Pic borrowed from the Internet)

 

Looking forward to starting some molds next week.

1st with foam.

2nd with plaster.

3rd with fiberglass.
4th with aluminum.

I'll make two fiberglass seats for each pattern. One for the aluminum pattern, and another to run on the bike being fitted for the seat out of glass. When I'm ready, I'll send out word to all who would be interested in having one of these seats on their bike. I'll give the loaner/donor the second fiberglass seat for the cost of the glass used to make it. Thats almost free.

I'm thinking the first one after my CL360 will be for a CB750, or a RD.
Could even be for a Sportster?

Gas caps for my tanks.

These look good! 

It will all be about options when it comes to caps. I like the British flip up stuff and the small screw on chopper stuff. Lets see what else I can come up with. 

I would love to get my hands on this!

A friend on Facebook sent me this pic a few weeks ago. This nice piece was on Ebay for sale. 

Wouldn't be so tough to make. Would be cast in three pieces with two optional pieces cast for either a two stroke oil reservoir or a battery tray in the hump. 

Would be a great piece to cast in aluminum!  

I'm thinking my RD400 project is gonna have something similar on it some time next year.

1/4" thick cast aluminum tank engraved by Otto Carter

Cant wait to start casting my tanks! Found this one on FB this morning. Check out the link for detailed pix of the engraving process.

http://ottocarter.com/godspeed.htm