Rat Bike Project

[facthunter]

Oily rag restorations are Better. When you start making something RUN It' s hard to Know where to stop. I don't believe in working on Fossils. They are for Patterns only. IF it has  to work Pay more for Better. Over restored is ruined, in my books.  Don't Polish bits that were "as Cast". Something well restored Looks as if it wasn't restored in the Normal sense.  The Original "Look" is always worth More at the end of the day. Plating things that weren't Plated. Plating often causes internal corrosion and makes things Brittle and the Plating on Nuts Peels when a spanner goes on it if it's crook Plating. It also ruins thread fits as the Plating goes on thicker at the ends and your parts Look like they came out of a Bathroom. Nev

 

[willedoo]

10 minutes ago, facthunter said:

IF it has  to work Pay more for Better.

That's a good rule to stick by. It applies well to buying motors. You see a lot of cheap junk motors on the market but when you do the mental arithmetic of doing them up, it just doesn't stack up to buying something already up and running. I think some people buy cheap flogged out motors with missing parts thinking they've got a bargain, but when they price the work and bits required, soon realise they've bought a boat anchor.

[facthunter]

Scrap Metal or an idea of how it was. Nothing more. Unfortunately some good condition things do go for scrap but they were all consumables of some kind anyhow. New stuff is not as  suited for repair as much as it was but there's always been examples  of items designed to be difficult to repair.. Even in the Teens some engines had a Max overbore of Half a Millimetre on the diameter of the cylinder. .020"  Nev

[willedoo]

I've estimated there won't be much ratbiking happening until later in the year. There's a lot of shed renovations to finish before that happens, but in the meantime a bit of parts sorting and sourcing is still happening.

 

On the shed/workshop renovation side there's still a fair bit to do. Some steel diagonal braces need to be relocated for better workbench fitment. A couple of windows need to be finished off and a couple more timber wall purlins swapped out for steel. Where one diagonal brace set is to be removed, an existing timber wall frame in that quarter section will be converted to a bracing wall with rods and bracing ply, double braced and insulated. Then a six metre long wall section leading to another shed room will be walled in for bench and shelving space. The steps leading into the other room will be removed and alternate entry to that room sorted. That gets the walls done, so then it's on to positioning existing work benches and building a couple of new ones. After that, the shelving set up.

 

That's all the hard part. The easier, fun part will be filling those shelves and sorting out tools and bits and pieces and setting up the workship equipment. The goal is for everything to have a fixed home instead of the mayhem the shed is now. I'll also lash out and get a sparky to run permanent wiring, lights and power points. I'm over plugging leads in and out all the time. This is a bucket list goal to get the workshop set up the way it's supposed to be. It's been a cluttered half workshop/half storage area for the last eighteen years or so since I built it, and it's been hard to do any major work in it due to all the junk in there which now has to go.

[willedoo]

To summarise all of the above post, basically I've got to spend less time fooling around on this computer and more time swinging a hammer.