Motorcycle Parts

I got the brackets welded onto the Rickati tank yesterday and I welded on a couple of bosses for a heat shield on the 900 exhaust pipe. In the photo there's also a couple of shock mounts I got machined up for the Rickati as well. Things are coming together on the project front again. I e-mailed the guy I buy my chrome-moly tubing from to get a price quote for the swing arm tubing and another piece I need for another project the other day. He's got the swing arm tube in stock but didn't have the other piece I was looking for. After a couple of e-mails back and forth he said he could get me a chunk within a couple of days. I was going to call him yesterday and place the order but I left my phone at home on the charger, so I'm planning on calling him today and get that going.

I changed the saying at the top of the page right under the Shop Teacher Bob header. I got the quote out of a pamphlet put out by the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers about their apprenticeship training program. That Ben Franklin was one wise man. The insulators were working in the shop and I told them to get me a little info and I would tell my students about another trade option open to them. I'm sure none of them know about the insulating trade. There are lots of skilled trades out there and they've never heard of most of them or the great opportunities they afford to a young man or woman.

The construction is just about finished up in my shop, finally. The electrician was running some conduit yesterday to hook up a roof vent that is tied into the heating system. As soon as the actuator for the vent is connected up they should be done in there. We had to move some work benches and the TIG welder to give him access for his scissor lift again, so hopefully they'll hook up the actuator in the next couple of days so we'll be done moving all the furniture around. Plus I'll be able to quit worrying about one of the knuckleheads walking underneath the lift and getting something dropped on their heads. Sometimes I wonder what it will take to get those guys to wake up. It seems like you have to retrain them every day - sometimes just the lunch break is enough to make them forget.

I got a couple of pieces made for the log splitter during Open Shop last night. I wanted to have that a little farther along by now but with the contractors coming in and some shenanigans going on in the shop I had to bird dog, that project slowed to a crawl. I think the problem with the students has been resolved and, as I mentioned, the contractors are about finished, so I should be off and running on the log splitter and bike projects real soon. With the cold weather and short days fast approaching, I'm going to go into hunker down mode pretty soon. I need at least one more good day to finish some outside work around the shack and I should be pretty well tightened up for winter.