Small shops that do a variety of work in sheet metal have frequent use for circle cutters of the type that can be driven by a drill press. Home craftsmen also find use for these cutters in toymaking and ornamental metalwork. Pictured are two designs, one made from aluminum alloy especially for light work in wood, hardboard, plastics and soft metals, the other for the heavy-duty jobs in metals. The latter type, shown in Fig. 1 and pictured in use in Fig. 2, is fully detailed in Fig. 6. The shank is machined with a No. 2 Morse taper to fit a drill-press spindle, or sleeve, and it also is turned with an integral pilot. The lightweight job detailed in Figs. 3 and 5 and pictured in operation in Fig. 4, clamps directly to the taper spindle of the drill press into which the pilot drill, of the tapered-shank type, is fitted.

Although the best workmanship would require that the square holes in the shank and tool-holder arm, Fig. 6, be broached, it is possible to drill holes and square them with a file with sufficient accuracy. However, the tool-holder arm must be a smooth, sliding fit in the squared hole in the shank to prevent chattering in heavy cuts. The tool-holder arm, Figs. 1 and 6. is threaded its full length and flats are milled on the four sides, bringing the dimension across the flats to 5/8 in. The length of the arm gives a maximum radius adjustment of approximately 5 in. The lightweight cutter, Figs. 3. 4 and 5, does an exceptionally smooth, clean job on a variety of materials. When carefully made, it is practically chatterproof. Both the cutting tool and the tool-holder arm are held in place with binding clamps of special design and these two parts are attached to the taper sleeve with a binding clamp of sufficient length to hold the parts in exact alignment. Note that the cutting bit is supported in a groove milled across the face of the binding-clamp seat and that the groove is slightly less than 1/4 in. deep, Fig. 3. This allowance is necessary to permit the clamp to seat the bit firmly. The upper details in Fig. 5 show how to grind the bit for cutting holes and blanks in thin material. When ground for hole cutting, the bit leaves the outer edge smooth. When ground for blank cutting, the inner edge of the cut is smooth. For work in metals, the speed of the cutter should not exceed 100 r.p.m.

Click images to enlarge.

You’ve likely heard of this one, previously known as Honda polish, now festooned with sweet biker tribals. The downgrade in packaging aside, it’s the best general purpose cleaner I’ve come across. I’m sure there are others that work equally as well, but I haven’t found it yet. I tried that S100 crap years ago and it sucked, too watery and overpriced for my taste. This stuff works on just about anything, equally as good at wiping off layers of crud after a weekend of camping in the rain, or giving a quick clean up to some crusty swap meet gold. Paint, fiberglass, chrome, aluminum, raw steel - I’m not sure if it’s meant for all those surfaces, but I’ve used it on all of them with no complaint.

I love me some Flitz. Best metal polisher I’ve come across (outside of some of the specialized stuff like simichrome). Again, I haven’t tried many different brands, I was lucky to come across this early on and haven’t found a need to experiment with others. Throw this on a microfiber cloth or a buffing ball and it brings the disco back. With some elbow grease it will even get rid of slight surface rust.

Here’s a thing you’ll never catch me doing - getting into an intense internet forum debate over motor oil. You know exactly what I’m talking about - every single motorcycle forum has at least a dozen threads filled in depth analysis over viscosity, synthetics, brands, etc. I’m sure there is validity to some of it, I’m just not that checked in. Over the years I’ve used a lot of different brands - Amsoil, Mobile 1, whatever was on the shelf at the gas station(although I avoid that when possible) and can’t say I’ve ever had a memorable experience of any of them being better than the other. These days I pretty much stick to Spectro and Amsoil, primarily because I like the fact that they both support the grassroots scene. Seriously, that’s how I make my motor oil decision. They both make great products, I’ve never had issue with either of them and I’d rather my money go to companies that give a little back than those that don’t. I ran this Spectro 20/50 all last year without issue, which is good enough for me. Caveat emptor, it did not make my bike faster, my dick bigger or my chest hair grow faster.

So let me answer your first question for you - no this will not wash Jay Z off you, but still - it’s damn good. I came across this stuff in the the clearance bin at AutoZone; for $.99 I figured I’d take a chance. Now I wish I had grabbed every bottle. For someone without running water in the shop, this stuff is brilliant. Fast Orange (with pumice) is my hand cleaner of choice, but this is a close second. Comes out like hair moose, rub your hands together and it dries and flakes off, taking grease and grime with it. Works great and well worth the $.99. Online sellers are getting $3-$5 a bottle, which is more than I would spend on it, but apparently you can still find it at Menards for less than a buck.

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Not fucking cool: Attention central Cal chopper freaks and eBay shoppers: last night Duane Ballard’s truck was robbed in a Salinas, CA, hotel parking lot. Custom leather wallets, key fobs, artwork, t-shirts and motorcycle seats were taken. If you see any suspicious stuff being sold on the inner web, please send links to Duane Ballard.

Duane is one of the good guys, if anything comes across your radar, let him know.

http://www.dbcustomleather.com/

I’ve always wanted to try out some casting, maybe at the next shopping. The making the furnace part looks fairly straightforward (there are tons of youtube videos on this as well) it’s the making the molds that looks incredibly time intensive. Still, doesn’t get much cooler than melting down a bunch of scrap and turning it into a cool part.

A typical bike engine contains around three litres of oil, and one of the biggest challenges to engineers over the years has been to keep that oil where it should be.

There are many joints between the various engine castings, and nearly every one needs some means of preventing fluids from escaping. In an ideal world, every joint face would be perfectly flat, smooth and perfectly aligned with its opposite number. Furthermore, when the bolts were tightened no distortion of the joint would take place and they would remain perfectly tightened throughout the life of the bike. Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world and this is where gaskets come in.

The aim of a gasket is to provide a little elasticity to absorb the imperfections found at the joint surfaces. Typically, gaskets are made from a mixture of fibres, such as paper or asbestos, held within synthetic rubber such as nitrile. Nowadays asbestos is no longer favoured and more use is made from up-todate materials such as carbon fibre, PTFE and Kevlar.

To read the rest of the article, download the pdf: Motorcycle Gaskets 101 PDF

“Precision gauge blocks are used in all well equipped shops to establish basic measurements for the purpose of laying out and producing parts of identical size. When critical measurements are necessary in laying out work on which machine operations are to be held within extremely close limits, the use of gauge blocks speeds up the preliminary operations and practically eliminates the reworking of jobs due to faulty scales or an error in taking readings”

Click the images to read the whole article.