1940 SS Knuckle

[CTNewman]

So, a bit of backstory, everyone who knows me knows I talk about this thing all the time. I was trying to keep it on the DL online because I was trying to get invited to a "cool" event like born free or Brooklyn. I've since decided that I'm just a nobody and don't really deserve to be invited anywhere. Maybe sometime in the future. Also I am simply just not good at selling myself on social media, so here's where I'm at and I'll update this as I go.

Basically the whole project started like this, a titled basket 1940 EL motor.




By now I've accumulated basically all OEM (not year correct, though) external parts. I'm going to use S&S/Jims/Andrews internals. The motor will be mostly stock. I don't plan on making it anything other than clean, I want to leave all the "wear" marks in the parts that have accumulated over the last 75 years. Sort of like how I shined up this cam cover:



For the sake of the story, not much has happened with the motor, I’ve been too busy with other things to really dick with that. Also, for the sake of the story this is going to be a little out of order, but no one’s probably reading any of this anyway.
I wanted to build a fork for this build, so here’s the story of that:
Drew it in cad.







Got castings made from 3d printed wax off cad models. Material is 316L. This is not inexpensive, but I don’t spend much money on things besides motorcycles, so it was within budget. All said and done I have into this what a nice condition early springer would cost.



Had to machine the castings. Fixturing these was often difficult and quite a learning experience for me.

























Fucked this one up. It was late and I was tired and added .100 to .750 and got .760. Can see the hole is offset to the right:



Had to weld



Mill flat:



Bore:



Better:



More parts:

[CTNewman]

Made these from solid bar:



Polished/smoothed:



More polished parts. About 14 hours of polishing time for these two parts.












More polishing. Wound up spending about 100 hours polishing alone.



Made some axle nuts:



Some more things. I reworked that part that I mentioned earlier that needed more work. Got it very very nice. Part of getting it nice was the discovery of this technique for fine grit sanding. It's sort of like a cheap flap wheel that super soft. Basically just a worn down buffing wheel and some cloth backed sandpaper cut up. An internet guy named Benji showed me. What a sweet deal.



Came out nice:



This is the bottom that you will never see #selfie :



Next I polished these guys up:





Came out nice:





I even tried something called grease-less compound, which is sort of a gritty paste you apply to a buffing wheel after applying glue, then it's supposed to make a soft, but gritty sanding wheel. Well that doesn't work, and it makes a huge fucking mess. More #selfie #dexter







It would work well for a few minutes, but it took longer to apply the paste than it did to wear it all off. Not worth the time.

I made an axle and stem bolt. First time doing manual threading on this lathe. Came out well, though I did find out there is a slight taper to the bed when I was trying to cut the bearing faces and the stem/tree interference face, but I was able to make it perfect (within a half thou) with some careful work.







Made a jig:



It's exciting to see hundreds of hours of work start to come together.

I didn't have a die big enough to put an 8" CLR radius bend on some 3/4 X .120 wall 316. I even called pro tools and the biggest die they can make is 7" CLR. The first person to quote this sentence and include your paypal address I’ll send 5 dollars to because I don’t think anyone actually reads it. They said they could outsource it, but it would be over 2500 dollars. Not worth it for 2 40 degree bends. Fortunately, my friend Zach gave me some oak boards. I drew a semi circle on them.



Missing a couple in process pictures, but then I clamped 2 pieces together, drilled and countersunk holes thru both, then cut out both pieces on the band saw. Then I took them apart and used a cove router to put a concave quarter circle on the curved edge:

[CTNewman]

Bolt both pieces together and now you have a forming die:



Soaked it in water for a bit so it would start on fire. Then filled the tube with sand and packed it tight, taped it off.

***If you try this, make sure your sand is baked dry. Even if it SEEMS dry, it's not and it can explode. Bake it for a few hours.***

Next I added some heat to the area I needed the bend to occur and bent that shit up. If I had to guess I'd say the wood die would last between 5 and 10 bends. More if you soak it longer and between each.



Checked the part to my 1:1 print, looks good a little off but:



Nope it's basically perfect:



Made a second one:



Right on. Then I sanded them with 120 grit. (Polish coming soon, but wanted to test fit-up)

Coming together!





Then finally got it welded together. Excuse all the fingerprints. I swear the polishing is nearly perfect.

It is full 316L SS. Uses friction dampers on the front of the lower link, which also has stroke limiters. The hardware is all custom made 17-4PH SS. The only part I didn't make was the spring (the acorn nut shown on the stem will be replaced with something I make)
And here are the finished pics:












Once the fork was done it was time to move on to the frame:


Axle plates. These are almost totally hidden (more on that later) so I didn’t sweat the polishing too hard.




Got some more wax castings done:



Then started the arduous task of polishing them. These pictures are “in progress pictures” I actually purchased and polished them before I had even started on the fork, and I learned a lot in that time. I re-polished them, but I don’t have any good pictures.

This motor mount is desined in such a way that I don’t need a squish pipe to run exhaust between the motor mount and the cam case:

[CTNewman]

Here’s some more story time: the neck casting I had made was pretty cool lookin’ But I tried my fuckin hardest to polish it and just couldn’t get it to come out good.



Too many Nooks and crannies



So then I sacked up and sent it to Tony Brock @ Mirror Finish Polishing. I paid him 50% extra to expedite it. 500 fuckin’ dollars. Well, after waiting nearly the amount of time he quoted me for a NON-expedited job, he sent it back looking like this:



He said that the expedited timeline starts when he deposits the check. OK. I then asked if I got a new neck cast with less small inside fillets if he would polish that one. He said sure. Well, I assumed that meant he would do it for free since I paid him so much to do basically nothing, so I had this one made:



I was getting ready to send it to him and asked him what his timeline would be and he said “several weeks and he’d only charge me based on actual hours” Fuck that. I was pissed and I’ll never send him anything again. Next step was machining it





Fuck you Tony I’m gonna do this shit myself











Then I got two super nice 1940 Half dollars and pressed them suckers into the neck:





More frame parts:

[CTNewman]

I know I make it seem like all this shit is easy and fast but I have been working on this project for a year. Working with Stainless, especially polished stainless is so much goddamn work. You have to think about when to polish, how to hold things, etc etc. I wish I documented everything, but here’s one little part and all the steps it took. A whole day’s worth of work most people would probably just think it’s something I bought on ebay:
Start with some round stock:

Chuck it up in the lathe and make it shiny:

Cut it to shape, don’t cut it off the bar yet though…

Get a new piece and start making something else:

Then make THAT shiny

Out of the lathe, into the mill:

Cope:

Then cut it off. Repeat 6 times:


Clamp so they’re square:

Weld:

Back into the mill. Face, then drill and tap:


Step back and admire the work you did that no one will ever care about:

Made some more little dodads for the frame.


If anyone is wondering how I do this with no CNC, you make lots of little cuts to a print, then file and sand it smooth. Lots of time, again.


Here is another part, the slug for the joint where the axle plates meet the frame

There are lots and lots and lots of other parts that I had to make just for the frame, but I don’t have pictures of them all.
I did buy this tubing roller from harbor freight for some parts of the frame:

That wood die trick I used earlier held up in my hydraulic bender! So that was nice. I added some plates to the side for rigidity.

The chainstay portion of the frame is in tension, so I wanted a little extra weld there. That’s what these holes were for

[CTNewman]

I’m going to gloss over about 4 week’s worth of work of cutting and bending and shaping and sanding and just jump straight to some finished pictures. There are hundreds of hours in this frame:



















@soulofire_ took these:





I also designed some hubs:





And made a lot of other pieces:









I bought some Borrani rims direct from Italy and painted them at my friend’s shop. Then I sent them to Buchanan’s to be laced up. They did a good job.











Ok, so now I’ll jump to some pictures from when the frame wasn’t complete, but I wanted to check the fitment of some components. This whole build hinges around the concept of having the rear sprocket and brake outbuard of the frame in the rear. The sprocket and rotor spacing is standard shovelhead, the frame rails at the back are only 4.5” on center. Everything fits as it should.





The rear drive. Sprocet is similar. Right now I have components for a keyed shaft but I may commission a splined shaft. (I can cut the keys but I can’t cut the spline)



Neck detail



Here’s some detail of the front wheel. Assymetric hub, half radial laced, half 4 cross.



That takes us to about the present. I’ve been working on some motor and trans mount parts the last couple days:





Some gussets will go under here



Pretty good fitup:





Ok that’s all for now, I’ll update more as I finish more.

[ericthebeard]

[Guest]

sofaking sick! just speachless, really.

[electricfuneral]

this is the craziest build ive ever seen documented

[rncbigdawg]

dudeee this is amazinggg!!!i'm pretty much sure you have o.c.d. tho!
killer work!||

[FXR1]

I'm only interested in you're builds and problem solving, not your $5 haha.

Awesome thread.

[Tattooo]

DAMN it................ That is some of the best detailed work I have seen in years.................. AWESOME.............

[Benny74]

I'm literally at a loss for words. This level of craftsmanship is just unreal.

[Dragstews]

[johno]

"The first person to quote this sentence and include your paypal address I’ll send 5 dollars to because I don’t think anyone actually reads it."

How about instead of 5, you give us some details on that flap polishing disc?

This is an incredible build, I love the castings.