Malcom Smith’s 8 Speed Husky 250

Malcom Smith's Husky * Speed race bike on any sunday

Click for bigger.

August 12th, 2010 by grail21 in Vintage | No Comments

Build your own disk & spindle sander

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Man, I just love the idea of building your own monstrous disk sander. Yes, their are low cost alternatives out there, but you build this thing right, and use a good motor and it will outlast your great grandkids.

August 11th, 2010 by grail21 in How To | No Comments

Cam Cover Puller for Ironhead Sportsters


Neat little tool to make things easier, seems like it would be pretty easy to make one for yourself.

August 10th, 2010 by grail21 in Video, Tools | No Comments

Art Deco Henderson Redux

1930 art deco excelsior henderson streamliner built by Frank Westfall

I find it completely fascinating how much attention this one bike has stirred up around the internet. Everyday the post gets more comments and other blogs are still posting about it (thanks for linking back). The coolest thing to come out of it though is finding out more about the bike. Pat Murphy dropped me a line last week, check out what he has to say:

My name is Pat Murphy and I am the one that restored the bike for Frank Westfall. I’m amazed at all the interest in the bike. I put a lot of effort into repairing and fixing the machine while trying not to destroy its originality. I was riding it around the neighborhood just last evening! Frank has original pics of O Ray Courtney on the bike in 1936 and also in the 40’s. It appears that he rode the machine quite a lot. There is also a patent in his name from the 30’s on the streamlined body style. He made several of these weird machines, each unique. Frank has another one (called the enterprise which is an Indian) and he has a pic of Courtney on the streamliner next to his son in WW2 military clothes sitting on another unique machine that I assume he also made. It took me forever to fix the body and paint it but I can’t begin to imagine how long it took Courtney to make it. Just conceptualizing the design was an incredible feat and accomplishment for him. Everything was gas welded with steel rod. No electric welding or brass. Thanks for your interest. Here are a few pics without the body. Notice the swing arm rear suspension with springs and knee-acting shock absorber. It also has a rear hydraulic brake. The rims are cast aluminum split rims that appear to be from an airplane. The only tires I could buy were from an aircraft supply house.

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How crazy is it to see it with out the shell? I realize it takes away the sex appeal, but I love seeing the reality behind the curtain. I imagine seeing what lies beneath the bodywork will ruin it for some people, but to me it makes it that much cooler. What lies on the surface is incredible, but what lies beneath it is equally so. Thanks to Pat for checking in, and to JKR as well.


August 9th, 2010 by grail21 in Moto Art & Pics | Comments (6)

Swap Meet’n

motorcycle swap meet parts and finds headlights tail lights Rhinebeck_3__307.jpgRhinebeck_3__308.jpg  

August 8th, 2010 by grail21 in Moto Art & Pics | No Comments

Classic Motor Porn

Rhinebeck_3__301.jpg Rhinebeck_3__302.jpgvintage motorcycle motors boardtrack pre-1920  

August 7th, 2010 by grail21 in Moto Art & Pics | No Comments

Custom XS650 by LC Fabrications

lc fabrication XS650 custom chopper

Jeremy Cupp at LC Fabrications is continually building head turning, killer custom bikes and his latest creation continues the trend. Dubbed the “Chicken Salad” and built on the venerable Yamaha XS650 platform, the bike oozes cool with it’s simple lines, hand crafted parts and slickly engineered components. From the cantilevered seat suspension to the dirt track inspired front half, this bike has it going on. For a full tech sheet and more info, click the read more link below.

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August 6th, 2010 by grail21 in Spotlight, Bitchin' Bikes | No Comments

Randoms from Acme

Acme_2010_213.jpg Acme_2010_219.jpg Acme Choppers

August 5th, 2010 by grail21 in Moto Art & Pics | No Comments

Tips, Tricks & Projects for your Lathe

Tool Post Grinding

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Ball Bearing Center

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Convex Turning Tool Holder
convex lathe turning attachment spheres

August 2nd, 2010 by grail21 in How To | No Comments

Motors Up Close

macro motorcycle motor photographs pics up close motorcycle motors up close Rhinebeck_2010_B2_208.jpg

August 1st, 2010 by grail21 in Moto Art & Pics | No Comments

Brits of the past

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July 31st, 2010 by grail21 in Moto Art & Pics | No Comments

Quick Metal Working Tips

metal working tips do it yourself MiscMetalWorkingTips_2.jpg

July 30th, 2010 by grail21 in How To | No Comments

The ins and outs of exhaust pipes

motorcycle exhaust pipes overview how to diyExhaustSystems_2.jpg

Good info, click for bigger.

July 29th, 2010 by grail21 in How To | No Comments

Keene Swap Meet: Spring 2010

   knucklehead chopper engineKeene_Spring_204.jpg Keene_Spring_200.jpg Keene_Spring_203.jpg

July 28th, 2010 by grail21 in Moto Art & Pics | No Comments

DIY Third Hand Clamp

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Chances are you might have a lot of this stuff already kicking around your garage (except for the ball-joint head). I have a cheapo version of this that I got at Lowes with the suction cup mount - not recommended. The suction cup has very little gripping power, so until modify it to give the base more weight, it’s pretty much useless. This version is infinitely more versatile and the design of the base allows you to clamp it to a bench if needed handle heavier stuff.

July 27th, 2010 by grail21 in How To | No Comments

Traffic Spikes & Mass Appeal

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The past few days have been pretty crazy as far as web traffic goes. After Chris over at BikeExif posted a story about the 1930 Art Deco Henderson photos I took, web traffic shot up like crazy. The story was subsequently picked up by a number of large blogs like Jalopnik, Wired, The Cool Hunter and Gizmodo driving folks back to Knucklebuster, the traffic went through the roof. Crazy numbers for this site - for reference, this site averages about 20,000 unique visitors a month - fairly small potatoes in the big world of internet traffic. From July 17th through yesterday we’ve had over 60,000 unique visitors. That’s triple the monthly traffic in only 9 days - the peak was over 16,000 visitors in 1 day. I know that’s no big deal when compared to large sites that are getting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of hits everyday day - but man, I gotta say it felt pretty cool to know that so many people were checking this out and digging it. Knucklebuster is not my livelihood, but it is something I am passionate about and take seriously, so the additional attention is pretty cool - even if it is only focused on 1 post versus the entire spirit of the site.

So to everyone checking out the site for the first time - welcome. If you happen to poke around beyond the single post that brought you here you’ll find that the 2-wheel gospel we preach is focused on spreading the do-it-yourself, built-not-bought mentality. This site is not brand, style or country of origin loyal - we’re open to all makes, models and styles although the slant is certainly gears towards heavily modified customs, choppers, café racers, street trackers and vintage bikes. Most posts on this site can be placed into 2 categories (1) do-it-yourself articles (2) visual inspiration. There is a ton of great useful information to help the the obsessive moto junkie posted under the how-to section - including hundreds of vintage tech articles & books about metalworking and moto mechanics. The site gets updated daily and I try to stay on top of responding to comments as much as I can (this is a 1 man show over here, so responses are not always lightning fast). If you’ve built a bike and want to send it in for consideration, check out the submissions section - I try to post the best submissions I get a few times a month and I always dig seeing what’s coming out of the garages of the folks who read this site.

For those of you who have been coming here for a long time, the song remains the same. This little blip of attention is not going to change the content or focus of the site - if anything, it makes me want to move faster on implementing some of the ideas I’ve been tossing around in my head (including publishing more in-depth written content & editorials).

Thanks to all for stopping by
Grail

P.S: Thanks to Chris @ BikeExif, Ryan @ the JJ and all the other sites helped spread the word.  

July 26th, 2010 by grail21 in KB News | Comments (3)

King of the Seventies

Kawi_Z1_1.jpg vintage 1970s Kawasaki Z1 FAQ file Kawi_Z1_3.jpgKawi_Z1_4.jpgclassic kawasaki Z1 bike dossier   

Classic Bike Dossier on the Kawasaki Z1. Still looks sharp more than 30 years later. For my tastes, very few bikes are coming straight out of the factory looking this good.

July 26th, 2010 by grail21 in Spotlight, Vintage, Bitchin' Bikes | Comments (3)

Macro @ Acme

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Getting up close during my last visit to Acme Choppers.

July 25th, 2010 by grail21 in Moto Art & Pics | Comment (1)

Pope Engine Bits

Pope motorcycle parts from rhinebeck pope motorcycle engine vintage pope motorcycle parts and engine

July 24th, 2010 by grail21 in Moto Art & Pics | No Comments

Setting & Checking Valve Clearences

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Checking and setting clearances on a DOHC engine. Click for bigger.

July 23rd, 2010 by grail21 in How To | No Comments