Furniture builds

Probably began as a kid, have always wanted to build furniture. Some sort of mix between NY loft and modern industrial. Metal makes me happy and I'm getting my head around the wood. 

Wife and son broke the coffee table, so I took that as a sign to build one. Upside of building from scratch is I can make it fit the space perfectly. 

Main structure is wrapped. Relatively thin wall steel. 

Welds cleaned up and marine grade ply stained and clear coated. Still struggling with a finish that looks right. 

Apparently coffee tables need friends.  

I love the look of raw wood in raw metal. Does not match a damn thing in the house, though. 

Here's final on table. Satin black powdercoat blends nicely with satin clear over the dark walnut stain. 

Probably a good place to hide under during the next quake. 

1976 Honda CB550 - getting closer

So, I'm explaining to the wife how the bike is a Cafe style build. She say's "Like a Cafe Mocha?" and from that moment on the bike wanted to be brown and cream colors. I tried other hues, but it refused to accept them. 

More mocking up. Dime City supplied muffler looks much better. Sprayed on a chalkboard paint. Not as cool as I thought it might be. 

Rear lighting is sorted. taillight is actually run/turn light from a Harley. Plate seemed fitting. Signals are Kuryakyn leftovers from a previous project, but look like they belong. 

Tail had to be shortened and narrowed a bit. I hate fiberglass. 

Crap photo, but this is how electrical is stacking up. 

Key moved to the back. Also hint of rattle can browns use to gauge a proper frame color. 

Backside of new brake light. 

Cut the hell out of the swing arm, ditched the clevis mount shocks and moved the upper mount forward in the frame. 

1976 Honda CB550, almost a cafe

Mock up stage. ATV shocks and a hacked OEM pipe. Tail is close to the shape I want, but subframe will see a visit from Mr. Sawzall. 

All of the electrical will live under the tail, so it need to hinge up. 

Beginnings of new subframe and battery box. Also relocated upper and lower shock mounts.

Bike had not run since the late 80's. Worst case of carb cheese I've ever seen. Cool part is it started up! 

Tank is a CB450, so petcock had to move a few inches forward. 

Better living through chemistry.

Fire, hammers, penetrant and some words my children are not allowed to hear helped remove the stubborn swingarm bearings. 

Hell on Wheels 2012

This is a most epic event held at Milestone Raceway in SoCal. Loose rules and classifications make it an all fun, zero drama day of moto-madness.  This year, Frank raced my vintage XL350. Big goofy smile says more than I can ever write here. 

A couple of broken bikes, but very few crashes. 

He said the Hawaiian shirt made him faster. Suspect the exiting fender did not .

Not even sure what Frank is doing here. 

This is the big boy class. Lots of Sportsters and not much sense. Yes those are apes and yes that's a sombrero 

Frank throwing some big body english at the XL. Both did very well. 

1976 Honda CB550 - Wantabe Cafe

Craigslist ad said Cafe CB550, project bike, needs work. $300. He took $200 and delivered it. Figured worse case I would part it out, but I've said that before and have never been able to do it. 

Bike came with a couple of boxes of parts and here's what they produced. Motor is pristine, clocks say only 5000 miles, tank is from a 450 and it kicks over very smoothly with lots of compression. All good. Sadly the wheels are rusted solid and only the front will roll. Oh, and there's zero paperwork, luckily it's out of the system and that should not cause too much drama. 

Bike is a CB550F, meaning the Sport version with the four into one header alongside other tweaks. Either the motor has been stored indoors and the rest outside or it's from another bike.  And so it begins...