Bitter End Old School Choppers Sportster Boardtracker Conversion Kit

BEOSC Leaf Spring Fork

Big Daddy at Bitter End Old School Chopper premieres BEOSC's Sportster boardtracker conversion kit in this video. We really like BEOSC designed and manufactured leaf spring fork.

BEOSC is a unique source for the home bike builder, too. They've got roller kits, like the boardtracker featured here, frame and frame components, springer fork kits and components, building jigs, and do-it-yourself books and DVDs for the builder.

Big Daddy also builds complete bikes for customers.

"What happens if I push this button?"

Push button to add drama...

Benji's Cafe Racers of New Jersey

BCR "El Poquito" 1969 CB350 Cafe Racer

Benjie Flipprboi studied design arts in college, but had a passion for hands-on restoration of cars. After putting that passion to work and completing a goodly number of car projects, he founded Benjie's Cafe Racers (BCR) in Edison, NJ. Benjie changed to motorcycles because car projects just took too much time to do.

BCR projects are based on Japanese and British bikes. Benjie hand fabricates his own unique parts for each project bike, such as gas tanks, seats, and handlebars. Benjie is laying the groundwork for building his own frames, also.

Check out the BCR blog to keep up to date with this up and coming cafe racer builder. He's currently making a carbon fiber seat and tank combo for a CB550.

         

Cubify 3D Printer for the Home

Cubify 3D Printers

A couple of weeks back we put up a post on the subject of 3D printing, and how it is becoming affordable for home use, moving out of the industrial arena and into the domestic front.  This is a subject we've got a lot of interest in, both personally and professionally, so we are keeping an eye on what's happening in that marketplace.

So, we just found Cube, a new 3D color printer from Cubify. Cube, which starts at $1,299, is targeted at the home market. It features a build volume of 5.5" x 5.5" x 5.5", and can print in ten colors. The plastic printing medium is provided in plastic cassettes that are easily loaded into a slot on the front of the machine.

Cube comes with software that translates users' models into a format that Cube understands. Files are downloaded via its WiFi interface... no cabling required.

Cubify also offers the "Cloud 3D Print" printing service for those who don't want to buy a printer. Pick your material and upload your files, then place your order. Your finished part is then shipped to you.

Stay tuned... We will continue to keep you informed here of other 3D printing products and services as they hit the market. 

Another Cyclone Boardtracker Replica

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After our post about the Cyclone boardtracker replica a few days ago, I went looking for more info about the original Cyclone. Courtesy of the folks at BIKEEXIF website, I found this great post about another builder's take on a Cyclone replica.

Graphics designer and vintage motorcycle enthusiast Frederick Fortune was, in his words, "awestruck" when he stood in front of one of the last eight remaining Cyclones at a motorcycle exhibit in Las Vegas back in 2005. The originals were valued at a half million or more back then. His wife said, "Forget it," so, Mr. Fortune decided if he couldn't have an original, he'd craft a replica.

A reworked 1964 Ironhead Sportster was the starting point. A Carolina Customs Sportster frame came next, followed by another key piece, the Donnie Smith girder. A pair of 21" Excel shoulderless, alloy rims were chosen for that characteristic skinny bicycle tire look, front and back. A custom antique-style saddle by Larry Heilman of Texas was put on order.

The headlight is a very cool touch... it's a repurposed spotlight from a 1915 vintage firetruck. Also fitted was a vintage Linkerts carb.

Frederick put in a lot of careful thought to the smallest details... read his own history of the bike planning and build there at BIKEEXIF (which is one of our favorite motorcycle blogs, by the way).  And the pricetag? Only $12,000...

ACE SPEEDgrande by 8negro
Design tshirt designs at zazzle.com.

Standing in the Shadows of Motown

They called themselves The Funk Brothers... a band of Detroit jazz and blues men, first recruited by producer Berry Gordy in 1959, to play backup for Motown Records recording sessions. Playing in the shadows behind the greats... Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Gladys Night and The Pips... It's claimed that they played on more number one hits than Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys combined.

As far as the general public is concerned, these great musicians were pretty much unknown and unheard-of until they were celebrated in this documentary of 2003, Standing in the Shadows of Motown. A couple of old friends of ours, both amateur musicians, were inspired by Grammy Award winning composer and producer Alan "Dr. Licks" Slutsky's book of that same title, which focused largely on the story of the great bass player, James Jamerson. So, they formed a production company and teamed up with Slutsky and film producer Paul Justman to produce this documentary.

An all-star cast of musicians and vocalists was recruited to film and record covers of more than a dozen great Motown hits... to name a few: Bootsy Collins doing "Do You Love Me", Ben Harper for "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", Joan Osborne for "Heat Wave" and my favorite on the playlist, "What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted." Chaka Khan won a Grammy in 2003 for her cover here of "What's Goin' On," and the documentary's soundtrack won a Grammy that year for Best Compilation Soundtrack. And playing behind them all are many of the surviving Funk Brothers... coming out from the shadows and into the limelight... In 2004, The Funk Brothers were awarded a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

We are proud of this wonderful labor of  love that our old friends had the vision for, and worked hard to make happen. Whether or not you are old enough to have heard them back in the day, check 'em out... the DVD and the soundtrack are still available, as is the Alan Slutsky book that inspired this work of art and love.


         

Looper Teaser Trailer

Looper Movie Poster

You know the old brainteaser paradox about time travel... What happens if you travel back in time and kill your father or mother before you were born? Or, even weirder, what if you met and killed your younger self?

Looper, a new Bruce Willis & Joseph Gordon-Levitt sci-fi flick, spins it another way... In the year 2042, a gangland killer (Gordon-Levitt) recognizes one of his targets (Willis) as his future self sent back from thirty years in the future. When he hesitates to pull the trigger, his future self gets away...

The first teaser trailer was released yesterday, the second today... the full trailer will be released at Apple movie previews site this Wednesday.

Looper is coming to a theater near you this September.

Meanwhile, we loved Inception, and thought Gordon-Levitt was excellent in that. And the Hans Zimmer soundtrack made it twice the movie it would otherwise have been.

   

Building a 1915 Cyclone Boardtracker Replica

This guy went all in to build a replica, from scratch, of a 1915 Cyclone boardtracker. Awesome.

UPDATE: Here's a post we did a week or so back that features two boardtracker customs, one from Cro Customs in California, the other from Revatu in France.

Anatomy of a Honda Cafe Racer Build

Pete M's Honda CB750 Cafe Racer

 Check out this beautifully detailed and finished Honda CB750 cafe racer by Pete M., a "Kansas farm kid." He's got quite a detailed build diary, lot's of text and photos as the work progressed. If you've got a build of your own planned, you can learn a lot from his experience.

Pete also has a page of links you might be interested in, such as the Kansas City Cafe Racers blog.

Amazon Supply for the DIY Maker & Hobbyist

Amazon Supply is one-stop shopping for makers, hobbyists, and DIY aficionados. It gives you quick and easy access to thousands and thousands of items that might be tough to find in your neighborhood hardware store or Home Depot... Bearings, bushings, motion control components for robotics, tubing, all sorts of metal stock, seals and o-rings, scientific lab equipment, tools, abrasives, etc., etc. I did a search for bearings, which returned over 5,300 individual items... An impressive breadth of inventory is available all across the board.

Amazon Supply features industrial and scientific products from top-notch suppliers like 3-M, Mitutoyo, Norton, Dewalt, PanaVise, and many, many others. 

Check it out... before you run all over town looking for just the right fastener, or copper tape, or some aluminum bar stock, whatever you need, take a look at Amazon Supply.

Update: For Steampunk art projects, Amazon Supply is a good supplier of materials, gears, etc...