Next job: pipes! I like to start with the lower horizontal
part, getting it tuckd in as close to the centerline of the
bike as possible and as high as possible so it won't scrape
in corners. I made a simple jig to hold the pipe in place, this
may seem unneccesary but the frame is wider at the rear than
it is at the front and I wanted the pipe to run paralell to
the centerof the bike, not the frametube. It really did make
it a lot easier.
Now I know I am my own most dificult customer but I also do
not like pipes with sharp bends in them, so I ordered some large
radius bends from the USA which I think look much better. The
problem with cutting bends is that the cutoff will not be round
but a bit oval or in some cases D-shaped, so I machined a steel
tapered plug that I used to make the weld areas round again.
When I had finished both pipes I thought the rear one was a
bit too high and would burn my sleeping bag, plus the lines did
not match so well with the front pipe, so I made a new rear pipe
starting with a small bend where the pipe comes out of the rear
head. Better!
The taillight I am using is a brass plated Motone Belair (I
designed a lot of parts for Motone, including this one). To clean
up the wiring a bit I CAD modeled a cover that I had 3D printed
in a mix of steel and brass by Shapeways, then chemically aged
it and brushed the high areas with scotchbrite. Next job will
be the exhaust braccket, and I see in these pics that I really
need to clean up the barn a bit!
