Big Mountain Run - What this means for my customers

That's right folks.  I'm taking myself on a trip through the NC and TN mountains.  As much as I'd love to stay here at the shop ALL year round for your emails, orders and phone calls, sometimes a man needs a break.  Being a 1 man shop, please take note that all operations here at Hugh's HandBuilt will be put on hold during May 17-23rd.  You can likely plan on a few days ahead of that and after being a bit slow as well, as I'm sure I'll have plenty of catching up to do.

Thanks for being patient with me,  and if you have any questions ahead of time, you know where to get ahold of me.  HughsHandBuilt@gmail.com


So yeah, if you wanna hang out and catch some sweet ridin', come to the BMR.  I'll be at Wicked Willie's Chopper Shop in Taylorsville NC  for the Kick-Off Party, so don't be a stranger and come say Hi...  Then lets hit the roads and have a blast.  All this work, we might as well enjoy ourselves a bit.... 

Be there, whats the point of all this motorcycle madness just hiding away in your garage, driveway or kitchen!  Let's Ride Folks!  See ya there!

Another sweet frame - A Deep Six Cycles / Hugh's HandBuilt Collaboration

My good friend Tom from Deep Six Cycles talked me into a long weekend of chopping, drankin' beer, watching hippies dance in the woods, and eating food from the gas station...   This is just a series of shots to show the KZ650 frame we built from scratch in the late hours of a long weekend...

Cleaned up the stock headtube and fit it in the frame jig... 

We had planned on using a 3/4" axle and Harley rear wheel, so I drew up some axle plates and had them Laser Cut.  Planning ahead is always nice...

We set up some random dimensions, drank beer, eyeballed it some more, and changed everything around until we were happy...  Then we built a quick engine cradle jig...

Bent up some tubing, Tom tacked it all in, and we just kept on rocking...

There was some funky measurements needed to get around the exhaust and the left side of the frame had to be wider than the right, so we took the time to make it all just right... 

Some really cool twin 1" OD downtubes that flow into the lower frame section... 

Then some more tubes were bent, eyeballed and set into place...

A very happy Tom looking over his creation... 

All tacked up, and ready for final welding... 

It was a good weekend!  The kind of thrash sessions that I always enjoyed when I worked on off-road machines right before a big run with a group of friends...  Remember guys, if you aren't having fun and making friends doing this stuff, then you are taking yourself way to seriously....  Take time to stop and smell the grinder dust, and keep on choppin' folks!

Metal Lathes - Why everyone should have one!

Updates have been sparse lately, due to a TON of crank and cams coming in, lots of forks, and the general work I do on a daily basis, I have been swamped!  I'm not complaining.

The Big Mountain Run is coming up VERY soon, and its the only thing "biker" I like to really make an effort to do each year.  If you need more information, lets just put it this way - It's a sweet ass motorcycle RIDE (I.E. Leave your trailer queens at the house folks) that ends up in TN with a hell of a party...  Good vendors, really great folks to ride with, and some amazing rides all through NC and TN...  Don't miss it...

Being that I have taken my first bike on the BMR twice now, I decided I wanted to ride something else this year.  I've been beating down my father in law over all the random things he may or may not have repaired properly on the bike we built for him.  Well, he has decided that I can ride it for the BMR since he won't be making it...  COOL!  Now I get to fix all the oddball shit that was done to it....  I'd love to show you some pics of it completed, but I'm gonna let it be seen first at the BMR... 

Ok, so back to the the Lathe, and why you need one...   My FIL had the head "rebuilt" somewhere by somebody who didn't have a clue what they were doing obviously...   The spark plugs threads were all buggered up, so they installed the infamous "Spark Plug Repair Kit" that you can find at all your favorite auto-repair houses....  This particular style NEVER works well in aluminum heads, but they installed it anyway....  So needless to say, I now had 2 really large holes in a the head of this bike where spark plugs wished they could reside along with some inserts that wouldn't stay in...

I tried ALL the hardware places in town, but nothing was going to fix this short of me pulling the head, welding it up, drilling and retapping...  I had no time for that, so I made my own new inserts, something that can't be found online or on the shelf somewhere...  After a few careful measurements with my eyecrometers, I whittled these down from some 7075 Al.

M14x1.25 threads ID, and 3/4-16 Threads on the OD.  

 
I took my time drilling out the head, making sure the valves were closed so as not to knick them with the drill (it was a very close fit).  If you are really careful, and coat your drill in some super tacky grease, you won't get any chips inside the cylinder.

All drilled out and ready to be tapped.  I stepped up the hole in 1/16" increments until I was at 11/16".  I coated the tap in grease just like I did the drill bits, and miraculously didn't get any chips inside the cylinders.

I used a liberal coating of RED Lock-Tite and installed the new inserts using an old spark plug.  I let it sit for a few hours, hit it with some heat and then removed the plugs. I installed new plugs, and took it for a test ride!  It was nice making it more than 20 feet without blowing out a plug. 

So I got a chance to ride about 75 miles today, some highway, some on the back roads and really beating on the engine...  I think my BMR ride is just about ready...  Now to tidy up some wiring, do a little base tuning, and tie on my Bedroll... 

It is the ability to make time saving things like this, that really make having a lathe and learning how to use it so worthwhile...  Otherwise, I'd have been riding my ugly beater KZ650 on the BMR...  Instead, now I can let my friend Tom ride it and have a buddy to go with me...

Get your paint on!

My man John Dills is now taking on a few more paint jobs.  If you are a really lucky and on the ball, you'll get in on some of the sweetest paint coming out.  You've seen his work in The Horse, Cycle Source, Wheels Thru Time Museum and plenty of others I'm sure...   I've had his work on a project of mine, and it is top notch, and his prices are more than reasonable!

Kick as Paisley!

Trout Sandwich!

Which Side Up?

And lots of other cool stuff...  He can do new, vintage, chops and stockers...  American and Japcrap (I mean this in the most modest of terms- haha) are welcome...

So make sure to hit up my friend John Dills at Dill's Paintworks soon if you wanna squeeze in a paint job before your build is finished...