Hello from Tunbridge wells

[Involute]

Just joined always loved these cars, very recently fully retired, from a career in engineering (mechanical) although I spent most of my working life in the computing and very large networking arena.
took early retirement from that and got back into my life long passion of motorcycles, through this got involved in racing, inc race bike preparation, (mainly TT and Manx Grand Prix stuff), building Custom bike stuff, inc 3d modelling, tubular chassis building, CNC machining etc etc etc.

Now fully retired having handed over most of the equipment to the guy I worked, he is going great guns.

I have a retirement project that I started 6 months ago but it?s not a Stratos I will be putting my name down with Hawk, long wait I know, 😬 in the meantime I also love single seater race cars from the 50s and 60s (Fangio Moss etc) I have a 3.0 24v Alfa from a GTV 1998. Which I intend to use in my ?Replica? or more correctly described as inspired by, the 50s, 60s race cars.
Im well on with the chassis of which I?ll post some pic at some point if your interested, and also some pics of a couple of bikes I built.

That ended up longer winded than I thought. 😊

cheers
Shaun

[Guy Mayers]

Welcome to the madhouse Shaun, yes please to pictures of projects past and present! You'll get feedback her and advice if you have any Busso issues during the build!

Guy

[Involute]

A couple of bike I’ve built all pretty much scratch.
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[Involute]

This is my chassis as it stands with the engine and gearbox fitted, the engine will be rebuilt, but I made a start on the covers and manifolds etc.

no idea why two of these images are rotated!?

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this will remain in this state for a while I recently had surgery on my ankle but I can get on with sorting other things out like ecu ??? Etc I’ll post my questions in the Alfa threads

[hollytree]

Wow. Looks awesome.
Is it going to be a Maserati 250F or Vanwall VW7 recreation.
Good luck and keep us updated

[Normb666]

Bikes look fab - is that first hub-centre-steered one based on the old Yamaha GTS1000?

[Involute]

Wow. Looks awesome.
Is it going to be a Maserati 250F or Vanwall VW7 recreation.
Good luck and keep us updated


it’s inspired by that era of cars, but in particular the 1954 250f, Team car, which had a higher bonnet, this allows me to get this engine under it, with just over 4 inches of ground clearance, no two of these car where the same, the V12 had exhausts both sides but a much lower bonnet, so it’s a sort of hybrid, but in silhouette yes 250f, the Connaught type B of 1955 was very very like the 250f.
the chassis isn’t far of finished now, then the aluminium body panels but that won’t be until next year, due to the ankle malarkey.

incidentally the gearbox is RX8 6 speed, I made the adapter, in fact made a couple, whilst I was at it.

[Involute]

Bikes look fab - is that first hub-centre-steered one based on the old Yamaha GTS1000?

it’s actually scratch built, so not really based on anything as such, but is as you say hub centre steering the engine is Aprilia RSVR, it was featured in a few of the Uk bike magazines around 2017, Performance Bikes, Street Monsters, when I finished it, the build was a series in Back Street Heroes, all the CNC machining etc was done in my garden workshop before I moved south from Yorkshire, on retirement last October.

Shortly after which I made a start on this project.

The bottom one was build before the others again scratch built.

[Tbone1209]

Super impressive engineering and machining skills...

[Bernard]

Super impressive engineering and machining skills...

Ditto.. love the bikes

[Guy Mayers]

We need a Tunbridge Wells Garage Day.... Incredible stuff! You're going to need a bigger garage for the Stratos....

[Involute]

We need a Tunbridge Wells Garage Day.... Incredible stuff! You're going to need a bigger garage for the Stratos....

when we moved here from Yorkshire, never thought I’d actually start this project although I had been thinking about it for years, and didn’t even bring a lathe just my hand tools and diy stuff, leaving a fully equipped workshop with Neil the guy I built the Isle of Man TT race bikes with, he now runs that business, but part of the agreement is he makes any CNC items I require, I still do most of the cad and CNC programming from home, this car won’t have CNC stuff! pretty much all hand work and a few laser cut bits.
I had a fair bit of work to do to this house which I’ve finished.
i wish I’d made the garage bigger but at the time I sort just didn’t we have a shed for gardening equipment etc, and we have a garden room come office come bike showroom which is actually bigger than the garage, so I use that for drawing etc.
my plan is once this car is on its wheels and more or less drivable, I’ll be able to push it outside when I’m wheeling the panels, room is tight but I’m ok with that �� for now.

[LPH_UK]

Amazing work! I never cease to be amazed at the skills and talents that are quietly being used in garages around the country. Although it does make me feel somewhat inadequate.....

[renmure]

Amazing work! I never cease to be amazed at the skills and talents that are quietly being used in garages around the country. Although it does make me feel somewhat inadequate.....

haha, now imagine how I feel with my collection of little sponges, washing mits, car polish and solitary sledge hammer!

[ProtoTipo]

and solitary sledge hammer!

That's a full tool kit Jim.

[Normb666]

Sledge hammer, eh. Now I feel inadequate with my ordinary hammer :(

I'm gonna stop following this thread with all its CNC this and laser that, before I start feeling like a drag on the human race rather than a producer of actual stuff (assuming cups of tea and coffee don't count).

[hollytree]

when we moved here from Yorkshire,
Why?
We moved from St Albans to Yorkshire for more space/bigger house (less money) and pies.
Where is the CNC stuff, so we can all jump on your man and his machines for Stratos bits

[Involute]

Why?
We moved from St Albans to Yorkshire for more space/bigger house (less money) and pies.
Where is the CNC stuff, so we can all jump on your man and his machines for Stratos bits

Where you at? I was in Yarm, and or Hutton Rudby.

I would have gladly stayed in Yorkshire, it’s where I’m from, and where I worked, we already had the house in Tunbridge wells, so when I retired we decided to sell one of them, my missus, son and daughter in law, are Theatrical Music writers and producers, they need to be within easy reach of London for work etc etc,

Toy Soldier Productions (unapologetically promoted :cool:)
https://www.toysoldierproductions.com/productions-ladym
this is the latest production, Lady-M, it’s currently on in Shanghai, for 3 years, and they are in discussions with a view to putting the show on in other llocations.


Anyhow we have a ton of room here, just not a big workshop / garage :(

As for the CNC stuff for your car! send me pics of what you need, or a sketch on a fag packet or whatever, I’ll convert it to CAD FOC and ask Neil if he wants to do it, however his priority will always be the TT bike stuff, we never advertised what we did, being a small specialist we had more than enough to do, but like I said, I am willing to do CAD drawings for free, especially while my ankles like it is (9 months to go, it’s a long painful story) :o
I can also do the CNC programming and you can take that and or the CAD Models to your friendly local machine shop, I’m ok with that, all I need is what type of machines they have.
I actually enjoy that aspect of the process and it’s better than sitting in front of the telly watching crap :)

Shaun

[Involute]

Here?s a couple of more pics of the CNC stuff
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Top images was taken when I was making the exhaust.

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other than the race bike, all at home, last pic is at the 2019 Manx GP, Classic Superbike race.

i don’t understand why some of the pics didn’t show so I reposted some

[LPH_UK]

Where you at? I was in Yarm, and or Hutton Rudby.

As for the CNC stuff for your car! send me pics of what you need, or a sketch on a fag packet or whatever, I’ll convert it to CAD FOC and ask Neil if he wants to do it, however his priority will always be the TT bike stuff, we never advertised what we did, being a small specialist we had more than enough to do, but like I said, I am willing to do CAD drawings for free, especially while my ankles like it is (9 months to go, it’s a long painful story) :o
I can also do the CNC programming and you can take that and or the CAD Models to your friendly local machine shop, I’m ok with that, all I need is what type of machines they have.
I actually enjoy that aspect of the process and it’s better than sitting in front of the telly watching crap :)

Shaun

Oh God! I think you might regret me reading that :D

[hollytree]

Thanks. I am now in Skipton.
I always wanted to Live in Tunbridge Wells as I was a v.keen rock climber and when living in S London used to spend many many days at Harrisons and Bowles Rocks. When I hit the ground in2017 and broke my leg in 6 places, my wife finally ended my climbing activities.

As far as CNC, thanks for the offer, but my car is finished (apart from when it is not working!!) and what you have described is over my head, though I bet it means stuff to some others on here.
Good luck with the build and the bikes look brilliant

[Involute]

The offer stands for others, I doubt I’ll get inundated, it looks to me like you lot have good suppliers for what you need :o

[Involute]

This thread seems to be getting a lot of traffic all of a sudden, I hope it’s not a bad thing for the site!
I don’t know if it’s the bikes or the car chassis pics?

After my ankle is fixed and I get back into it, I could continue to post updates on the car if it’s not a distraction from what is a Stratos forum??.

Perhaps an administrator could comment.

if it’s the bikes when I used to ride them pre ankle injury, coming back to one of them after fish n chips in Whitby or wherever, it was always easy to find them because of the crowds of people discussing them, and not always bikers weirdly.
I wish I had a pound for every time some turned the steering on the centre hub bike, then scratched their head in puzzlement :cool:.

I am considering selling two of them (the black ones) because they are now just gathering dust which is a shame :( :rolleyes: :)

Shaun

[Normb666]

Don't worry, Shaun, you keep posting all that interesting stuff, cos it gives this lot something else to goggle at besides boring ole Strat pix :)

[Involute]

It seems people are very interested in all this bike/car/cad malarkey, so here?s some more cad stuff of the bikes, for the hub centre steering I created a full 3d model of the whole bike before commencing any fabrication or machining.
SNT was me and two friends when we competed in the TT amongst others racing, SNT is now run by (N) Neil on his own myself and Tony both now retired, Neil concentrating on TT race bike preparation etc.

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[Involute]

This is the XR69 we campaigned in 2019 in the classic superbike race at the ManxGP / Festival of speed on the Isle of Man

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the last one is the chassis in its jig

[Tbone1209]

Very impressive!

[Involute]

Turning the chassis 3d cad model into metal…..

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Bronze welded using a gas fluxer.

bead blasting to remove the flux residue

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boring the steering head in the mill

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3 frames after powder coat

below coping the tubes ready for the steering head

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[Involute]

The petrol tank on bikes makes or breaks the look, the first one was done free hand ie, without the use of a buck, then to get better consistency we made a buck, but I forgot to photograph it, but a did do of a later one both pictured here.

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free hand one.

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bottom image is the centre of the buck, second from bottom tank side is made from one piece, and is for a super twin at the TT

[Involute]

Swinging arm, main spars extruded box section, the rest is made from flats folded and welded together to form box sections, the rest is water jet cut plate, axle boxes incorporating quick releases for TT pit stop tyre changes.

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below same quick change on a Kawasaki swingarm
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[Involute]

Should I continue with images of the Centre Hub Steering bikes development?

[Guy Mayers]

Yes please! One day, when I'm in Tunbridge Wells, I might drop in for a cuppa! This work is so beyond anything I've done I'd love to see more!

[Involute]

Your welcome to, the bikes are still here, but they don’t get used now sadly, and I don’t have CNC equipment here, just, a lathe, Tig, Mig, etc etc, but for my current project CNC wouldn’t suit, it’s mostly hand work.

[Guy Mayers]

I'm probably going to be at Gerry's early July. I'll check back with you then?

[Involute]

I'm probably going to be at Gerry's early July. I'll check back with you then?


My next surgery on my ankle is 4th July, I’ve had an ankle replacement fail catastrophically, so it was removed, 24th April, leaving a 40mm gap between the tibia and talus, 4th July is the next phase, this involves, Donor bone ground up and mixed with my blood and stem cells, in an attempt to regrow the bone in order to fill the gap and fuse this joint.
so il, be on crutches, but if I’m getting about your welcome :cool:

[Normb666]

Bloody L.....all I can say is "ouch"!!

But just out of interest, there used to be a pub near me called the Ankle Bone. It was a bit of a low joint tho.... (sorry, couldn't resist!) :)

[Guy Mayers]

I'll leave you in peace to recover from surgery! I'm own with Gerry every month so plenty of time for a garage hour or two when you're on the mend!

Hope it all goes well!

[Involute]

So after spending what seemed like an age doing all the cad models for the bike, I ordered some aluminium plate for the major components.

Flat pack motorcycle

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machining one of the chassis/engine plates, no pain no gain.

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not enough Y axis travel to do the whole thing in one setup, so had to move the head out and re clock to do the last 100mm

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one side outer more or less finished, after dry build the inner was also machined.

[Involute]

Incidentally to create the cad file for the above the Aprilia engine major component and key mounting points where scanned using the CNC mill and a touch probe, to create a XYZ point cloud.

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my original probe, I designed for use with Mach3 CNC software controller, and the subsequent probe I made to scan the engine.

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this is the early stage chassi, the tubular section is Inconl, WHY because I had a load of tubing left over from a job, so it was free, it’s a nightmare to work with on a structure like this because it moves all over the place during welding.

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This engine is a spare Gen1 engine, ultimately I used a Gen2 one but with gen 1 ecu etc.

In the first photograph here of the chassis anyone recognise the crankcase just visible on the right???
clue it’s not motorcycle!

[Stableblock]

This is fascinating work. Way beyond anything I could aspire to.
Peter

[Involute]

A motorcycle usually has a swing arm at the rear and forks at the front, in this case we need a swinger at both ends…..

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this first image is the matching of the tooling to bend T45 oval tubing, this was very problematic I did it cold, filling the tube with sand and making a rocking arm fixture that stretched the tube in small increments.

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after several attempts I got these.

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Front axle boxes
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weld in the ends
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embryonic swinging arm

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Front and rear swingarms, after powder coating, I can’t find more pics of the fabrication.

[Involute]

I came across a few more pics of the swingarms.

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here they are test fitted to the chassis
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this image has the gen2 engine, and tail side plates, nominal wall thickness here is 2.5mm

[Involute]

The above post has the yoke fitted, centre hub don’t have forks, but it needs steering, I decided to keep this as normal as I could, so top yoke, but using a tapered splines on a hollow shaft, as a steering stem to transmit the torque from the handle bars to the drag link at the bottom, these splines are designed so I could machine both the internal and external on the CNC mill, loosely based on a torques fastener, or “Hexalobular” :)

First images is the 3d model.
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Splines also on the drop down stumps that hold the bars

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Top yoke

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Nuts

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Splines

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yoke before fitting, bearings are angular contact.

[Tbone1209]

Beautiful craftsmanship!

[Involute]

I designed my centre Hub steering system around using an existing wheel, from a Yamaha, I bored out the centre section and made a central hub located via the brake disk fastener points, the hub is billet aluminium, spindle is EN 24T, as is the offset kingpin, this is supported by tapered roller bearings which are preloaded.

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2 of these carry the wheel bearings and brake discs.

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rough turning the hub

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CNC machining the hub, and thread milling the bearing adjustment area.

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Hexalobular again this time on the end of the spindle, this for the upright that links the swingarm to the top drag links forming an adjustable parallelogram, this allows adjustable castor angle.
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boring the kingpin location.

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this is the finished hub

[Involute]

In this bike there was a lot of CNC stuff, but also quite a bit of more traditional fabrication, the tank etc are hand made without a buck, sort of free hand, in part because I knew this bike was a one off, for me it was an exercise in engineering, at this point I was working more or less alone in my home workshop, this is all pre SNT.

this is making the panels for the tank before tacking up.

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making the fuel cap
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finished tank riders eye view, during an early test.
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[Involute]

Here’s some other bits I made for this project.

Water pump, because the port was in the wrong place.


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Radial brake and clutch master cylinders

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Radiators the cores where supplied by Pace.
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The radiators work on the principal of the Meredith effect, behind the rads I created an aero foil, which creates a low pressure area behind the rads sucking air through them, I was unsure if it would work but it appears to, the fans only come on in traffic.
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this images is the day it was first ridden.

[Normb666]

Fascinating and deeply impressive stuff there!

Interestingly, I once went out with a girl called Meredith who had an amazing sucking effect on my bank account, but for very little positive outcome. I shortly had to abandon the project while I could still afford to feed meself :)

[Involute]

Got the chassis onto its temporary wheels temporarily, next stage get the motor running, then wire frame the chassis, and make a start on the body panels, tone of work to do but as the ankle heals I’ll do what I can.


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[Involute]

Why are the images rotated?

[hollytree]

Why are the images rotated?


Dont know, but it looks fantastic

[sdebez]

Ohhh, hub centre steering.
Surely you must be fan of John Britten?

Fantastic work.

[Azzo42]

Not sure why the images get rotated when uploading them. I saved a copy of the images and rotated them but they still uploaded incorrectly. I then opened the rotated files and saved them using the Classic Windows Paint App and they uploaded OK, very strange.

Amazing build.

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