A friend of a friend built a project car from a salvaged, no-title frame and he said he’d never do it again for fear of the mountains of paperwork required by the DMV because (IIRC) the frame wasn’t titled and the engine and frame numbers didn’t match (and never would, of course, being built from scratch).
Sounds like a lot of fun! Gonna be doing some kind of project car myself in the near future, but everything (parts and all) is still in my head. That said, my project will not likely delve into homemade suspension…at least I hope not 
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The bureaucrats think the purpose of their lives is to spoil everybody else’s fun.
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I hope he brings a kidney belt and extra monkey butt powder.
That thing’s as ugly as a plug.
Seriously, for an 8 day road trip, get a Honda Goldwing.
“When you get the bike finished, and you have several decades as a science fiction, television and movie super star, submit your trip via the link on our website and someone will check it out”,
…or…
Just jump-start it with AA batteries when it’s done.
Just building a bike isn’t cool enough, y’gotta add some pizzazz.
I’m jealous of your build. Looking nice.
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I don’t think magnaflux testing is practical for me (budget, access, high part count, ‘dirty’ fabrication). My plan is to ensure a known safety margin via regular (potentially destructive) testing. Strain testing (in a jig) at double the max encountered forces seen in typical motorcycle road use (so 2x 1.25g braking force, 2 x3g up bump force) is a very quickly approaching next step in the project (before steering links and even suspension are fabricated); if one or more components fails in that step, I may be out a fair bit of work (depending on the failure). If it can pass those tests, it should be good in any non-crash scenario.
But Shatner never actually drove the thing. Maybe Takei could join the ride if he can take a week off that Broadway production he’s in.
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[quote=“pixleshifter, post:24, topic:60211”]
That thing’s as ugly as a plug.[/quote]
Yep, its meant to be. The pretty shiney chrome gets sprayed on my teeth as I am witnessed into Valhalla.
If I’m not trying to be a rolling freakshow, I’ll take my FJ1100. Even staying off the interstates so I can run the twistys, 8 days would be a very relaxed, comfortable pace on that bike. I’ve run it 500 miles in a day just getting lost on local roads.
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I was referring to Shatner’s Shitner.
Yours looks like it’ll have post-apocalyptic credentials.
I guarantee you there are some motorists out there filled with dread too-- dread that somewhere out there William Shatner will be driving a “Landjet” on the same highway as them.
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This is an area that California makes relatively painless, via SB100 registration.
As an aside, I was talking to a friend of mine last night after a smashing success of a pizza party, and he mentioned (http://onedropyoyos.com/) they now have two lathes, three Haas mills (one is six axis), and a Japanese mill. They are moving into a new building and I may try and convince him to set up a small hacker space.
Another friend dropped off one of these last night. Apparently I can buy them for a few dollars, they support Bluetooth low energy, and consume something like half a dozen miliamps.
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Beware of inducing failures by testing. You can initiate a crack, or (if the stars are wrong and you repeat the tests regularly) you can propagate a low-cycle fatigue crack. In ideal world we’d have pocket sized portable ultrasound test jigs with cellphones as displays to detect such cracks (and to test composites, delamination is a bitch especially with carbon fiber stuff; I can imagine high-end cyclists springing up for such thing to test their carbon frames if the price is right).
Six-axis mill!!!
…thought… what about going the RepRap way in the world of CNC, and designing a CNC machine or a set of machines (mill+lathe+EDM…) that can be used to make its own clone? Could democratize access. And stimulate development of opensource multiaxis controller software and tool path generators. And development of new innovative measuring methods, for higher accuracy closed-loop control.
Do it do it do it! 
Looks nice! For heavy duty applications, at least. For light-duty, the cheaper nRF24L01+ may be enough, with 14 or 16 bytes per packet as unsolicited Bluetooth LE broadcasts.
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Yeah, its funny, they manufacture yoyos with immense, immense cnc mills and lathes to Raytheon aeronotics level of quality. I can’t say too much but their latest innovation in the community may be around removing the need for any threaded parts and using cryogenic welding. But that is still in pre alpha (shhhhh… (No really, shhhhhhhh… ))
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Cryogenic welding? Nothing about this specific phrase in the trade literature available to me. Friction welding, perhaps?
He’s going to ride about 250 miles a day on a trike that is almost a car. Big whoop.
0.5 degree taper, kind of like the Chuck on many drill presses (but a gentler taper). Cool the inside tapered rod which is 0.0005" too big to fit into the, err, tapered hole, with liquid nitrogen and heat the, err, hole to 600F.
It shrinks the male end, expands the female, combine the two and gently let them come to equilibrium. You get a weld as strong as, well, a weld without additional material.
I am sure I am using the wrong words. But the cool thing is that it preserves all tolerances, and if applied evenly should up quality even more.
Ahhhh! Shrink-fitting! That makes sense now.
There’s a case when some workers tried to shrink-fit a bearing on a shaft. Heated one part with flame, cooled another part couple meters below in a pit with liquid propane. Darwin took a couple of them. Liquid nitrogen, with all its oxygen-capturing dangerous properties, is safe in comparison.
Cold definitely shrinks the male ends.
I’ll show myself out…
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Thanks! Aluminum seems to work well, but when they start trying it with magnesium and titanium, I am standing behind a wall.
Titanium sparks like noones business.
Titanium shavings and flakes are used in pyrotechnics. They make nice bright calmly shining fire. Solid titanium does that too, as many surprised salvage workers can attest to after taking an angle grinder to a titanium heat exchanger.
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