Musket V-Twin Royal Enfield, Check Out the Latest News

Musket V-Twin, Royal Enfield Based Special

See the latest news regarding the Musket V-Twin here. The ORDER page is up now!

The Musket is a Royal Enfield special created by industrial engineer Aniket Vardhan. He designed and made casting patterns for a custom bottom end that used two stock Royal Enfield top ends, either 350cc or 500cc, to make a V-twin engine. It's a beautiful piece of work and is meeting with success in the marketplace.

Steampunk Vespa Scooter by Cris Cofitis

Pulsar Project Vespa Steampunk Scooter

This steampunk'ed Vespa scooter is the creation of Greek designer, Cris Cofitis, of Pulsar Project. The Damn Geeky blog has an extensive photo gallery of the scooter.

Take a look here at Pulsar Project to see other scooters and motorcycles designed by Cofitis, including the insane custom he calls "Chimera," which was an entry into the AMD bike build at the Sturgis 2011 rally.

Tip of the hat to the Design You Trust blog... we first saw the Vespa at their Pinterest board.

The Wooden "Sandwichbike" Bicycle from PedalFactory

The Sandwichbike from The Pedalfactory

The Pedalfactory is an Amsterdam-based design firm with a mission to design and sell unique bicycles. This new offering, the wooden-framed "Sandwichbike," is certainly that.

The Sandwichbike is the brainchild of industrial designer Basten Leijh of Bleijh Industrial Design Studio. Basten designed and built the first Sandwichbike concept as an entry in the 2006 International Bicycle Design Competition (IBDC), an annual industry event held in Taiwan.

Sandwichbike Packed for Shipment

The bike's frame is constructed from two flat plates of beech plywood tied together by machined aluminum tubes. The forks are also beech plywood. The design of the bike allows it to be shipped flat in a box, complete with all components and the tools required for assembly by the buyer at home.

The Pedalfactory has created a website specifically for the Sandwichbike. Buyers can order a bike online.  The first production run began shipping in Europe this month; international shipping will commence in January.

Tip of the hat to Dezeen blog, which featured the Sandwichbike in a post this month.

Art Donovan's Extraordinary Steampunk Lamps & Illuminations

Art Donovan "Tesla" Wall Lamp

Art Donovan is an extraordinarily talented designer with a flair for steampunk aesthetics. He brings these talents and sensibilities to bear on the design and fabrication of incredibly detailed and beautifully constructed lamps, lights, clocks, and mechanisms. Donovan is also a leading chronicler of the steampunk subculture; in a post last year we featured the first edition his book, The Art of Steampunk, which featured not only his work, but that of other excellent artists and craftsmen in the steampunk scene (a revised second edition was published this past summer, see our Amazon link below).

Behance Design Website Showcases the Work of Designers Around the World

If you're interested in design --- print, illustration, fashion, architecture, web design, etc. --- be sure to see the Behance website. If you are a designer, you can create an account there and post your portfolio up for the world to see. Also, you can find design jobs posted there. Check it out.

SoCal Motorcycle Startup AVA Velocity Works Brings Sixties GP-Styled Cafe Racer to Market

Designer Adrian Van Anz & the Swift 250

Wunderkind designer Adrian Van Anz is the design talent behind AVA Velocity Works, a Los Angeles-based motorcycle startup that is bringing a 250cc cafe racer to market. Van Anz styled the Swift 250, AVA Velocity's first model, to be reminiscent of the Grand Prix roadracers of the Sixties, such as the classic Bultaco 250 TSS.

The Swift 250 is powered by a single-cylinder OHC engine sourced from a Chinese manufacturer. The bikes will be assembled overseas. No word yet on will they will be available for purchase, but if you are interested you can inquire here at the AVA Velocity Works website.

Cycle World magazine had a first-look review back in May, after the Swift 250 was rolled-out for its first public viewing at the Quail Motorcycle Gathering last April.

This is Adrian Van Anz's first foray into motorcycle design, but not his first design effort to be informed by motorcycling's yesteryears; check out his Derringer Cycles gas-engine powered bicycles with styling inspired by early-Twentieth Century boardtrackers.

Stratasys Mojo 3D Printer Leases for $185/month

Stratasys Mojo 3D Printer Kit

Stratasys still has its Mojo 3D printer lease program going here in the US. This is an industrial grade, professional printer of the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) type that you can lease for as little as $185/month. It prints with the Stratasys ABSplus material.

You can find a YouTube video of the Mojo in action here at a post we did about it earlier this year.

You can get a free printed sample by registering with Stratasys here.

Please note again that the lease program is available only in the United States.

   

State Bicycle Company

State Bicycle "Midas" Model

I've seen a lot of Web ads for State Bicycle Co. lately. They focus on the design and manufacturing of their own line of elegantly styled fixed-gear bikes for sale at low prices. I love their clean and colorful good looks.

State Bicycle is located in Tempe, AZ. You can look for your nearest dealer here. Of, you can be online from Amazon services, see our product links below.



      

Budnitz Titanium Bicycles

Budnitz No. 2 Titanium

Paul Budnitz is an American original with a heck of a life story... a man of many talents: computer programmer, artist, photographer, author, clothing and footwear designer, toy designer at Kidrobot, filmmaker, and a successful entrepreneur who's founded a dozen companies in the arena of art and technology.

Paul started designing and building his own bikes in 2006.  By the time 2010 rolled around, people were stopping him in the street to ask where they could buy one. Some even asked if they could buy it from him on the spot, so with all that encouragement he founded Budnitz Bicycles in 2011 to bring his designs to market.

These bikes were born of Budnitz's desire to design and build bicycles that he would love and value... quality, durability, easy and comfortable to ride, and beautiful, too. He ended up with a bicycle he loved and rode so much that he sold his car.

To get lasting quality and durability, Budnitz bikes are constructed from titanium, stainless steel, and cro-moly. Only top-end components are used, many hand built by boutique suppliers of racing bicycle parts.

Budnitz Bicycles are expensive... $3,000 and more. But they are built to last a lifetime and more, and meant to be valued for their utility and beauty. Here are some thoughts on that subject from his Budnitz Bicycles blog:


A very good bicycle fits your body.  The geometry is well thought-out so it’s comfortable, you don’t feel like you’re going to fall off when you pedal.   It doesn’t creak or rattle.  A very good bicycle is beautiful, and it makes you feel beautiful.  It’s an extension of your body, just as the car is an extension of your body when you drive.  And a very good bicycle will last a very long time, maybe your whole life.

Check 'em out here.

    

Steampunk USB Drives

Steampunk USB Drive by Russian Modder

The cheap and ubiquitous USB drive is in fact quite a testament to Moore's Law and the art of semiconductor technology as it's evolved over the last half century or so... shoot, I remember when the first 8" hard drives on the market for personal computers would hold all of  5Megabytes. Now you can get 32Gbytes on a little $25 gizmo you can put in your pocket, or lose amongst the spare change in the bottom of your purse.

The typical USB drive is a pretty dull and utilitarian item, but these modders and their creations featured at the Design Buzz blog have transformed them into Steampunk works of art.

Here's a link to a great Maker Instructables post that can provide you with some inspiration to mod one of your own. 

        

Yanko Design, Industrial Design Website

Lamborghini Concept Car by Mark Hostler

The Yanko Design website is a popular destination for industrial and product designers, with well over 160,000 subscribers. A wide breadth of categories are featured: Architecture, Automotive, Interiors, Technology, etc.

Designers are encouraged to submit their work for viewing. The site also features a design industry-focused job search engine.

Santiago Herrero Ossa GP Inspired Electric Motorcycle

We really like this electric motorcycle concept that is inspired by Spanish racing legend Santiago Herrero's monocoque-framed GP bike of the late Sixties. This design was submitted by the ARC-TIC design group in Barcelona, Spain.

We've focused here on a couple of items from the automotive category, but there is plenty to see and enjoy across a wide range of architecture, interior design, and personal tech products, among other things. Check it out.

Power Generating Soccer Ball!

Soccket Power Generating Soccer Ball

Through the website of one of our readers, a product designer from the Bay Area industrial design group Focus PDM, we found out about this very ingenious power-generating soccer ball, the Soccket.The Soccket is an "energy-harvesting" device... by means of an internal electricity-generating mechanism, it converts the kinetic energy imparted to it when kicked or thrown into electricity that is used to charge an internal battery. A socket under a flap on the ball is provided for connection of the battery  to a cellphone, an LED lamp, a water purifier, etc.

So, you have some fun playing soccer, and then recover some of the energy you expended in the form of electricity... cool.

The Soccket started life as a class project of Jessica Matthews and Julia Silverman in 2008 when they were Harvard undergrads. They realized that a product like this would be both fun and useful for people in the developing world who don't have easy access to an electrical grid. So, after graduation, they set up shop in New York City and put together a team to form Uncharted Play, with a mission to design and develop what they call "FUNctional" products that bridge the worlds of play and need. You can read about the genesis of the Soccket and Uncharted Play here.

The design team at Focus PDM worked with Uncharted Play to redesign the Soccket for improved performance and greater efficiency, and durability. Check out this excellent interview with Julia Silverman at Popular Mechanics about Uncharted Play's plans to distribute the Soccket globally, while you are at it. And do visit the Uncharted Play website... it is beautifully designed, has some info about how the Soccket works, and news about more FUNctional products that are in the pipeline.