Clunkmeister

Underneath my seat. And I know where each and every wire goes! I now run aftermarket sparky box and pickup coil, so no chasing obsolete parts. The box is crammed in there in front of the battery, and nobody has a clue how much wiring is involved in a modern bike. Harley does it so neat, and me? Kinda looks like it was worked on by the Unabomber on an acid trip.

I guess we just can’t leave well enough alone. I love old cars and I love old bikes, and an old customizer’s touch was to install 59 Caddy tai.ights, so for me, why not? The Heritage Springer was ostentatious when new, looking like a brand new 1948 Harley in 1997, so I’ll just go one step further. Cheap brainless therapy, but it certainly looks different. Starting to look like a Tijuana Terror! A real “Garbage Barge”. That’s what we called loaded down bikes when I was young. We were tearing all that crap off them back then, and now as oldsters, we slam it all back on. That cheese grater rear bumper is a genuine 1948 Harley rear bumper. Yeah, it’s a bit much, but a sign of the times. NOBODY in the US leaves their Harley stock. Nobody. I think Europe is the same way. A Harley is a blank slate, and I think Harley makes more money selling bits for them than they do on the bike itself. There’s a fundraiser for a local musician who’s a recovering stroke victim, so she’ll be out and about after Sunday Worship. Took the time to set belt tension, align the rear wheel, and shine it all up. Saturday I’ll wire up the new lights, put the bags and seat Mack on, and go for a rip. Then, back on the bench

If you’re going to kill yourself on a bike, a Sportster is right up at the top of the list of bikes that’ll gladly help you so so. They haven’t changed much in 50 years, and still give you the chance to have a GREAT big engine in a tiny little bike. They were never fast from the factory, but Harley would gladly sell you everything you need to turn a fun bike into a holy terror. A 1250cc Sportster is the ONLY bike that has ever tried its level best to kill me graveyard dead, all while you having a stupid fun time doing so. They corner better than any American bike ever has, and around town, they have got to be the most fun motorcycle ever built. if a Sportster could have as good of highway manners as it does city manners, I’d own one. My ancient Springer is an 80 year old anachronism.

I expect they are “functional”, right?

They’re called murdercycles around here, because there have been several cases of a biker being involved in a fatal supposed single vehicle accident with no obvious cause. Bikes don’t “just crash” any more than cars or planes do. There’s always a reason. Cops think someone’s doing something. Running them off the road, laser pointer, who knows. But I ride in a small group, pay attention to those around me, and don’t ride stupid.

Mike, we look at your work and are all blown away by your work. Brilliant work, Sir! Like many here, I have this kit in my stash, waiting it's turn for me to do my typical hack job on it. I'm quite thrilled to see you building it, because I didn't know how to treat the thick airfoil portion compared to the thin warping areas. Now I know, and now I'll try. I even have the correct Aviattic fabric in stock. Yippee!

Martin, I agree, the Iron Sportster is one fun in town machine. But, it's utterly brutal on the highway and beats you to a bloody pulp. if I only needed to black around town, that Sportster is THE bike of choice for anyone who has any kind of beating heart. That Kawasaki? What a puffed up pile of junk. Same with Goldwings. They're cool, and a bit better thought than the Venture, which is just puffed up Marshmallow Man mobile

For WW2 stuff, how close is Tamiya XF-71? Tamiya claims it to be right. it doesn't seem grey enough to me, but what do I know? thought?

A bit of added wiring and busying up will do wonders here.

Time spent with proper nippers will yield beautiful parts. Cockpit detailing is outstanding.

I really, really need to do this. I need to take a brand new kit, fresh off the press, and be one of the first to give it a shot. The detail on this is absolutely incredible, and is exactly what we’d expect from the fertile mind of Peter Castle. Positively brilliant execution of a simple master plan: to bring the 1/32 community probably the only 1/32 scale Defiant we will ever see in our lifetimes. The prototype needs no introduction at all, as it is a bit of an infamous machine that first caught the Luftwaffe napping, and once it’s weaknesses were figured out, we’re slaughtered completely enough that Fighter Command yanked them from all daylight ops. it sprang from the drug addled minds of the glue sniffing planning board that gave us such gems as the Hawker Henley, the Blackburn Roc, and probably the Blackburn Blackburn Blackburn Blackburn Blackburn as well. The Defiant was rather an attractive machine, especially when put up against any of the aforementioned Blackburn and Hawker jobs. The kit is nice. Very nice. Superlative. And a quick initial check finds us with a real large scale crate.

I’m not the only one wondering what that big red monstrosity is. Good LORD it’s ugly! My old Harley is lost in comparison My wife really doesn’t like the look of the 1948 twilight. I wonder why?

One thing I’ve done in the last 3 weeks is to gather Sponsors for a cause many of us here really believe in here, and that’s the identification of and treatment for Veteran suicide prevention. I managed to convince enough businesses that I’m wholly capable of piloting this old relic of a motorcycle for 300 miles per Saturday for 1 month, that if I can do this, the donations per Saturday will come to $10/mile, or $3000 per day, just from my contribution. The cool thing is that the money is staying local and going directly to the caregivers and facilities, not disappearing into some corporate bank account where .02 on the dollar coughs down to the Veterans after all the greedy 10 million/year CEOs get their cut. In other words, we’re not falling into the Goodwill store trap. Doing the math shows this to be $12,000 for me giving up a month’s worth of Saturdays. From one person. For the cost of some oil and petrol, plus some food, of course. I’ve done 2 Saturdays already, and 2 more to go. The two pictures below are from last Saturday, and yesterday. The pic from the arse end was last Saturday, and yesterday is the front view. Joy tells me my bike looks like a Siberian Yak, with all the fringe hanging off, and she’s gonna give it a haircut afterwards. In no uncertain terms, NO!

I'm a sucker for the old stuff with an art deco look to it. Obviously I'm big into cosmetic enhancements, which is good because my two favorite colors are black, and chrome 😃 So a bit of extra chrome here and there, along with some gold leaf where needed, and away we go.

It’s a paper tiger in many ways. It benefitted from many months of (literally) buckets of parts in front of our Chesterfield sofa, all taking their turn as I mindlessly polished them out. Then reassembling it on the lift table until it started resembling a motorcycle. Dropping the engine onto its mounting plates was the biggest wake up call I’ve received in awhile. I used to be able to lift these old engines easily enough. This time, my neighbor had to help. Jeroen rides a moder Harley Softail with a modern Yarley V twin engine, and he’d run away and hide from me. This is pretty impressive on the straights, but in corners, this undampened front suspension will pogo you to death. It’s best to remember its roots. Modern Harleys are world class motorcycles, but this was absolute even in 1948

I was going for a 1948 FL Panhead, yes. But with modern niceties such as a Softail hidden rear suspension that looks just like an old rigid bone rattler hardtail frames of the 40s, plus an electric leg: I can’t kick them to life anymore with these knees. I lowered the rear and seat as much as I dared so I could get both feet on the ground with bent knees. My knees and right hip are SHOT due to arthritis, and I limp to the bike, but am a holy terror once onboard. Even throwing my leg over is agony. New knees this fall I hope. Like any lowered Harley, it’ll drag a board in a corner about 5 degrees before it drags a pipe and it goes out from under you, but you don’t ride an old open spring Harley to carve corners. It’s not a Duc or Guzzi. You ride it they did in 1948: 55-65 mph, sitting upright like a proper English gentleman, chugging along and smelling the summer fields. It’s crazy fun for what it is. I even got my Barbour style oilskin jacket, a Davida TT helmet, and some Halcyon aviators.

I just couldn't resist this, and it's positively brilliant! It's been a bucket list kit for 25 years

It’s literally built from spare parts, to resemble a 1948 Harley.

I put it on the dyno last week, and this old Frankenstein engine is putting out 89 hp and 130 lbs torque at the rear wheel. The torque curve comes right up off of idle and is flatline from 1250 rpm right up to 3200. These old air cooled Harleys aren’t horsepower machines, but they have HUGE flat torque curves the never seem to stop pulling. At 3200 rpm, they’re rattling your fillings, so I lay off at 2900 or so. They’ll rev to 5K, but it’s a useless exercise. Think old 1930s Straight 8, V12 and V16 cars and you have the idea. the engine will need compression releases, though, because the starter hates rolling it over.

And promptly broke down. Got it home and found a plugged fuel filter. Pulled the tanks, rinsed them out and dumped out 5 years of shale rust. Gasohol really isn’t good for fuel systems. So the tanks got POR-15 tank lining, the Mikuni carb got pulled, cleaned, and built, and then I replaced the blown 7.5 amp fuse for the turn signals and brake lights I had mistakenly installed in place of a 10 amp fuse. now it runs great, and a few hours of this per week should straighten out any lingering issues

We said “enough’s enough”, it’s time to get back onboard and ride this train, so, first things first: I pulled out an old junker custom job I had been working on,I had covered in the far back of the barn, cleaned it up, changed the fluids, put a battery in it, and went for a ride.

I’m back, guy. Let’s get with it

Have no fear, Gus. I have a 410 I will most likely NEVER build. It’s not my cup of tea

It looks like I finally see the light of day here. I had, over the last year, a convergence of events that literally knocked me to my knees. As of now, I’m free of it all, and the first thing I’ll do is make myself a list of outstanding modeling obligations, and fulfill then all writhing a couple days. I truly look forward to talking to everyone again! Cheers! Ernie

I just received notice from Fran that HPH models has closed its doors, effective immediately. Their websites ore offline and they are no longer accepting orders at this time. Personally, I’ll miss them, as I loved building their kits. They were certainly challenging.