waxes

Dan dropped off some waxes for different prototype parts that we are working on this winter. Here is a squirrel that Miss Brittney made out of clay, Dan made a mold out of it, and poured two waxes. I am not sure what to cast them out of, or what to do with them, but it is still cool.

The business end.

Here is a wax for a clutch pedal and the right side stand.

Five waxes ready to go. I am going to cast them in 4140/

This was difficult to read on the original stand, but shows up well on the wax because it is all the same color.

more discovered motor bikes, exhaust pictures, and 65 pics

My friend Greg called the shop the other day to talk about the cool 39 that he just bought in southern Ohio from the second owners family. They had owned the bike since 40 or 41. The bike was repainted/ mildly restored in the seventies. Which is a bit of a bummer. Check out how nice the bags and seat are!!!! holy cow this bike is so neat. Greg got on the list for the next batch of mufflers, I am honored that a muffler that we make will be on such a cool and amazing bike.

This has the later 39 chain guard and transmission case. The grips, gas caps, paint and mirrors were changed, but other than that the bike is untouched. It makes me so happy to know that bikes are still out there and being pulled out of sheds and barns.

What a great layer of dust. This bike had a big windshield and leg shields on it at one time. Congrats Greg, I am happy for you.

Chris Heir came out to take some fancy magazine pictures of Jim's 39. It is supposed to get up to 36 degrees on Sunday, so hopefully I can take this bike for a spin.

I am starting final assembly on Jason's 65. Here is a picture of it before I put the transmission in it.

Dun dun dun! There are a lot of pieces to this thing. I like the challenge, it is going to be a king of the highway cool motorcycle. I have to do a really good job on this bike because the owner is going to be the pastor at our wedding. lol

Yesterday, my dad and I picked the exhaust up for some bikes from the painter. We ceramic paint them and the paint works pretty well and has a good shine to it.

Check it out! I love putting pipes on bikes.

Wayne's 46 with painted pipes on it!

Exhaust installed on Vern's bike! I dropped the sheet metal off for this bike a few days ago, it is going to be skyway blue and I would like to put blue emblems on it. Big wheels keep on turning

THEY ARE STILL OUT THERE

Darcy brought this cool 47 fl over this morning. He bought the bike a month ago up by the canadian border from the previous owners widow. This bike is really nice. It was dolled up in the fifties or sixties and has pretty much been a complete bike since 1947. The serial number is 47FL61xx and it is in a late frame with steel foot board mats. The grips are panhead grips. The bike was originally black and the sidecar was skyway blue.

We fired it up and Darcy gave my sister a ride down the road and back.

Somebody went through a lot of work to doll this bike up. They took apart the original wheels and chrome plated the rims, spokes and hubs! The front end and front brake were chromed too. One of the strangest parts on the bike is the trim on the top of the sidecar and the back of the sidecar, it was chrome plated steel. all the other trim that is on the bike and the sidecar is stainless.

Early narrow brake lever!

This was another odd piece, The rear fender has narrow braces and 4 holes for mounting late 47 saddlebags. Wide brace fenders started showing up in late 46, although Harley didn't throw out their narrow braces and they continued to show up on bikes for quite a while. I have seen several original 47s with narrow braces, one of my friends told me that he owned an original paint 48 with a narrow brace rear fender. I guess that just shows that hd was a manufacturer and some of their changes were a progression and not necessarily a cut and dry deal.

I believe this mileage to be accurate, the bike is nice and tight.

I was kind of surprised to see steel foot board mats on a bike this late. The coil wires and nuts have been changed, as has the derby cover. Check out the original mud flap. That is a pretty cool piece.

The tail light wires were poorly rigged up after the fender was painted. Check out the square clip on the left frame tube with the dash to seat terminal loom and the oil pressure switch and positive wires run through ti. This is pretty cool.

There doesn't appear to be any black paint on the clutch pedal spring, most of them were black.

The exhaust was all rotted out, so Darcy put some corso pipes on it with an original muffler. I took about a 100 pictures of this bike, so if you need any detail shots or questions answered comment and I will post them. Have a nice day.

46 FL ready for paint

I finished fitting the dash and tanks on Vern's bike yesterday. I will tear it down sometime today and take it over to get coated in skyway blue. This bike is going to be beautiful.

Check out the fit between the tank and the dash and the speedo and the ignition switch. This is very cool. Harley didn't start using a gasket between the dash and the tanks until 47.

STRAIGHT!

The rear fender on this bike was very rough, the main section of the fender had been cut into two pieces with a cutting torch back in the day and crudely welded back together.

weekend Pictures

We were fortunate enough to have our friend Paul from Chicago come over for a weekend visit I have known Paul for a while and he is a true bike enthusiast and has owned a ton of different bikes over the last forty years. I always love hanging out with him and talking about old motorcycles. Whether they are British, European or American, there is always something to talk about.

Another neat thing about Paul is that his uncle was Harry Molenaar Harry owned a dealership from 1933 till 1990 and played a very important role in saving a lot of very special bikes over the years. He was also into flying planes and he owned a race track and would have races all the time. Paul and I have been talking about spending a weekend together so that we could go through old photos and advertisements that he got from Harry for a few years and we finally nailed it down. I made a lot of copies of cool and unique stuff and will try to inject them into the content on this site from time to time.

Here is a cool picture that I took for Mr. NOOt

This promotional cut out was on Harry's desk for a long time. He gave it to Paul. It is promoting a Hill Climb in 1932 that was put on by the Swastika Motorcycle Club which was made up of a bunch of German immigrant members. The artwork is amazing on this piece.

I doubt that this club kept its name 12 years later after World War 2 was over. It is a really neat piece of history nonetheless

High temperature for today is 16 degrees

The expected high temperature is supposed to be 16 degrees. Weather like this always makes me think of summer time riding, So I decided to post some old pictures from this summer rather than whats going on in the shop. It is supposed to be in the forties tomorrow and sunday so I am pretty excited to go ride bike. Cold and hot are relative to your surroundings.

Here is a cool picture of the colonel/Reverend/sir Stanley D Miller, Brittney and I. I had a great conversation with Stanley the other day and he is back to riding motorcycles and being the old bike and good will ambassador that we all know him for.




I always love seeing my dad's 39 loaded down and ready for action. This bike gets a lot of use and holds up well. three years ago we put our first set of 39 prototype gears into this bike and they have over 18 thousand miles on them and have held up extremely well.

Here is a picture of me giving Yoshi's son his first motorcycle ride. He really liked going up and down the road. I wish that I could say my first motorcycle ride was on a 36 knucklehead. it is all good though.

Here is a picture of Mr Lock Baker cruising around on our 47 El. He stopped by the shop after the rally and hung out for a day. It was pretty cool Go check out his website, he builds some really neat bikes.

Here is a picture of me after taking one of my friends 36s for a spin. This was the first 36 that I ever drove. It is a nice bike and it was fun to take it for a cool September spin.

Here is the number 1 designer Casey giving his son Cole, a ride on our original Paint 46 knucklehead. Cole and his brother Carson are awesome little kids.

This is a great picture of Miss Brittney, I took this picture on our first trip together. We rode up to North Dakota to hang out with Delmar and talk about machining and old bikes. While we were in North Dakota, a huge storm showed up and we ended up not being able to head south till the next day. That trip was 150 miles and the longest trip that she had ever gone. We rode over 7000 miles the rest of the summer. Brittney sat on a pillow and put her feet on the top frame tubes. She is a lot tougher than me.

misc

My dad is just about done with this 58 motor. It is turning out well and should be buttoned up tonight.

I think that this is when bikes look their best. I had to pull the exhaust off and blast everything so that I can drop it off to get painted with hi heat paint.

I got three sets done, I still have another set to do, but its all good.