Been around almost 60 years and have been involved with motorcycles one way or another for at least 45 of that. As a teenager and young adult I have mildly customized bikes/cars, chopped bikes, painted bikes/cars and rebuilt bike and car engines. This Cafe Racer project is the first I have done in about 20 years. Years ago I never had the proper shop to really do a good job or a do lot of custom fabricating. Mostly limited to hand tools and an arc welder, but this time is a different story
Over the years I have slowly assembled a pretty extensive home shop and aquired the needed metal working skills, Mostly self tought though my dad taught me to weld and run a drill press at an early age.. My actual area of expertise and education is electronics. I worked in the Television picture tube manufacturing field for most of my adult life. I also worked in a Chrome plating shop for a year, a wiring harness factory one summer, cable TV installer for two years, a cabinet factory for a year and recently worked as a factory maintanace tech for a couple of years. Work hours during the latter half of my TV career put an end to my automotive, bike projects and most other hobbys I'm interested in. It has only been recently since approching retirement age that time for this type thing has become available.
Today, shop welding capabilitys consists of MIG, TIG, Arc, Gas welding and the ability to weld both steel and aluminum. A gas fired heat treating furnace and crucible furnace along with sand foundry casting equipiment was added some time back. Small aluminum and brass castings can now be done. Machine shop consists of a 12X37" metal lathe, large R8 Mill/Drill machine, Drill press, metal cutting bandsaw, abrasive chop saw, tool bit grinder, bench grinders, belt sander, face sander, buffing and polishing machines, sandblasting cabinet, 50 ton A-frame press, arbor press, shop built slip roll machine, shop built ring roller, two compressors and lots of air tools, spray painting guns including a precision air brush.
Also aquired various woodworking machines such as a table saw, radial arm saw, band saw, jig saw, router table, reciprocating sander. All of which is handy for making templates and patterns for castings if need be.
Needless to say there is not much my shop could not fabricate. This is what made this Cafe Racer project so appealing. . My biggest problem is a lack of organization and a garage/shop stuffed with things in my way which shouldn't be in there at all.