rebuild indoors

[richard]

must post this here as it is technically off topic - after pics of trojan indoors - i was ALLOWED to rebuild including painting and assembly of my 1959 AJS heavyweight in what was technically our dining room . it is now the living room !

[Chris Thomas]

Dear Richard

a 650 CSR if I am not mistaken.

I my younger days a friend lived in a big old victorian house and decided to build a Vincent Black shadow in one of the empty atic rooms. When it was all finished the only way out was to ride it down the stairs, which was undertaken with the help of his two brothers, while his mother was out.

He still builds Vincents.

Chris Thomas

[richard]

close but no cigar chris - very close i had a close friend with the CSR 650 ally mudguards being the easiest point of difference . mine was the de-luxe . strangely enough jim was much older than me having been a motorcyclist 30+ years by then including during his national service and pre- 65 trials . he also owned a beautiful vincent twin and he and his wife were hit by a volvo estate both have been left partially though " relatively" mildly paralysed . anne limps badly and jim only has the use of one arm - after 12 years or so.
i also had a friend , still do, who once built a hovercraft in his victorian greenhouse before realising that he couldnt get it out once finished - part of it's still there i think .

[richard]

jim and ann , on the left ,in happier times at an AJS / Matchless rally where over a 1000 bikes of the marque were regularly on the sunday road run , all fourstrokes, nearly all black and were we noisy !
also pic of the vincent in my drive probably the last time i saw it - usually AJS mounted when on our runsl

[marcus]

In the 70s a friend had a beautiful slightly customised Matchless called Blue Meanie, with the flying glove/hand monster from the Yellow Submarine film painted on the petrol tank.

When I was at Medway College of Design in Rochester one student decided to use a fairly large Japanese motorcycle in a studio photograph, up on the 6th floor. The lift was too small so a bunch of us pushed it up 6 flights of stairs. This was relatively easy even though getting it around the corners was a bit of a squeeze for those either side.

Going back down was a lot harder. We had six people, but by the last three flights we were not in full control, one fellow kept the brakes on but the tyres were just sliding over the dust on the flat and smooth concrete floor. By the last flight a couple of people panicked and let go and it accelrated more. At the bottom of the last flight it ploughed straight on through the swing doors with quite a thump, and ended up half way across the reception foyer. All was OK but it had been just a little worrying.

When I had my Trojan painted in my workshop by a friend we used low odour paint. I think the only fair description might be "Slightly Lower Odour" because it made a shocking smell through the whole building which lasted for days.

[Bob Purton]

I can relate to that Marcus, to avoid workshop dust settling on my work I often lacquer barometer scales that I have resilvered on the kitchen table, I usually do it when er indoors isnt indoors but I'm always found out as the whiff lingers even after doors are left open and extractor fan left on full blast. What would our homes look and smell like if it were not for more sane family members keeping us under control? 

[marcus]

However irritating 'er indoorses can be, without the limitations imposed by our 'EIs I reckon a lot of us practical fellows would have a much lower life expectancy! I do not even live permanently with my 'EI, and she is remarkably tolerant of my unusual ways, but even still a little cartoon version of her suddenly appears on my shoulder and whispers warnings into my ear if I am about to do something un-domesticated!

The incredible thing about the paint fumes is that the floor above has wall-to-wall lino, then the top floor has two layers of floor boards (a modern tight-fitting one above the old warped ones, and carpets, but the fumes were all the way up there in seconds.

[Big Al]

Brownian motion experiments and differential diffusion calculations. Wonder if they do that for Physics 'O' levels these days? Is there even a Physics 'O' level? Hmm, coffee has just been made downstairs. So that will be a loss of some 2.354 degrees C before I get there from the kettle being poured. These things are important.