krow113

H.B. ! Try not to flatline...

Once you understand the qualities of the metal its easy to work with , soft or not. The soldering is cool , the sequence of events is slow enough for even the dimmest wit to follow. lol Also the jigging is a good idea for the frame at least. I applied flux with a tiny paint brush and there is no errant solder evident on the frame, it all got sucked into the joints. Jigging also allowed a pre-heat of the entire frame , ensuring the joints were hot enough through the seperate soldering procedures. I know you guys wanna see another pic...:

lol A Gotha stalled. Tamiya Fat Boy stalled. Make a wip? I did the frame cuz I love them , I worked with the real thing in many various grades of condition , many times saving them from being hacked up. Soldering was done with , GASP , an open flame butane torch. Frame is jigged as we jigged the real thing (almost) stabilized and secured prior to the soldering. This because watching Knuckle builds I noticed an issue with the rear brake cross-over tube not being parallel to the surrounding areas. Sure enough it is a small amount out of line. This causes other parts positioning to become compromised. Soldering was easy after practise on runner bits. There is a series of events that occur and can be anticipated easily by the solderer. Once you have a handle on this series of events you can easily solder the work. The metal is also real soft , easily distorted. Looking at the parts and re-packing them is enough to bend it a small amount. Te jig shows rods for alignment , a rear axle plate spacer , pins to hold , popsicle sticks to space the frame up , an alignment rod with a point to check the steering head alignment , etc , etc. If the frame is out of whack , the whole bike will be out of whack and it will show!

Got their Brough and Knuckle. Soldered The Knuck frame together:

...yyyyyeeeessssss... I can. See the. Flying Elephant.

Linky: https://www.modelfactoryhiro.com/hpgen/HPB/entries/349.html I'm gonna go with; Its a Crocker. A really cool , iconic American V twin.

Watching the rise of the printers, it did become evident if you cant make the files you will be buying them from someone who can. Seeing peeps trying to implement free software , rather than buy more useable programs , is evident as well. My own conclusions were that the free software will limit out at some point. I made an investment in Vectrics V carve program for my cnc router. I put aside 6 weeks for the learning curve , became fairly proficient in 4. So 2 valid points; There is no way around the creation of the files , you either can , or you cant. Investing your time and money in a complete program is better than investing your time into a free program , one that will eventually reach its limit . Your experience may differ. lol

Wiring procedure progressing nicely;

Yes the clear trick is well known and effective. Also cutting the white mask slightly smaller than the blue mask will alleviate the dreaded white edge.

Thanks. Here is one of the coolest custom tricks I learned in the chopper shop; During the frame layout brackets etc , brake lines and wiring is also considered. With enough experience it is possible to visualize different scenarios. The frame wrapped with tie wraps to hold everything is bush league , like a series of wraps along a frame rail , maximum ugliness. So small clips are migged on on the underside of the tube to guide and secure the wiring: So from the usual viewing angle the tube remains clean and the wiring is secured. Sacrificial yellow tie wraps for initial installation , to be replaced with black during final finishing.

Choppa building in progress. Lots of work getting done as preliminarywiring is laid out , this will be a completley fabbed harness using stock Harley wiring components with custom parts. Get it all mounted and start wiring! Under seat wiring begins to look better as layout continues.

Excellent. A hurdle cleared nicely. Next hurdle after production; The Critique. I will buy as soon as available. lol

Out of the blue.. and into the black...

Looks like the Tamiya 1/6 FLH Those choppers with the radial engines are modeled from actual bikes , prolly be trippy taking one into a corner at speed...