Seasons Greatings

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, or maybe Seasons Greetings.  What ever you prefer, to you and all of yours.  Spent my christmas fighting a house fire part of the day and the rest with the girls.  My prayers go out to the family that lost their home.  On Christmas?, that sucks.  Every one made it out ok though.  Oh, by the way I am a volunteer Fire Fighter.

Well the hand is healing well, and I got the splint off.  Maybe somthing will get done now.  Spending alot of time on the Jaguar project, but I got some bike stuff going.  I know I say this alot but I will try to get some pics up soon.

Well I guess thats all for now.

Finished The Pipes

Well I have had these done for a while now.  I was pretty close to having this bike done when the customer decided he was going to take it and finish it himself.  Not real sure what the deal was but its his bike so!!!  Any way here are a couple of shots.

 Pipes turned out real nice.  The have torque cones and baffels.

 We test ran the pipes on El Shovelle and the sounded really good.

 Good shot of the front pipe and the forward control design.

Here is pretty much how the bike left my shop.  I built the swing arm, the tail section, sissy bar, seat pans, forward controls, oil tank, pipes, and had to modify the rockers on the front end.  The frontend and tank were built by Chrome Horse.

Don't Fight your Lathe, She will Win

Well it has been quite some time since I have posted.  I guess I should start with my biggest screw up in a while.  While rushing to finish up a frame, I went to the lathe to face down a cross tube.  Not using my head I failed to remove my gloves and you know what can happen.  We I got wrapped around said tube, but I was very lucky.  I still have all of my fingers and my life.  It was a good wake up call though.  I broke my index finger, dislocated all but my pinkey, dislocated my wrist, and my elbow.  So here is what I am going to say to anyone who operates machinery of any kind.  Don't get too comfortable, and use your head.  Nothing and I mean nothing in your shop is worth loosing a body part or your life over.  So here are a few images of my extreme stupidity.

 My damn glove and a piece of my shirt sleeve still wrapped up in the lathe.

 Gouges in my forarm from the lathe bed not much bruising yet.

 Broke up hand hard to see all the swelling but I have really skinny hands.

Side view shows the break right before my first knuckle.

The moral of this story is use your head around machines.  Your life depends on it. I am Living Proof.