Happy Thanksgiving 2011!

Ultimate chocolate pie of doom

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  On this most auspicious eating holiday, I look forward to nothing more then the desserts. My contribution to Thanksgiving Dinner this year is my infamous, Ultimate Chocolate Pie of Dooooooooommmmmm…….    I’ve you’ve never had one of my ultimate snacks of doom I am sad for you.  If there’s one thing I know well, it’s snacks. For a snack to receive  the ultimate snack of doom title means it’s something pretty special, has spent years in development, and has enough calories to supply a small village with sustenance for a week.  Ultimate chocolate pie of doom is my own secret recipe, developed over years by making and consuming many hundreds of chocolate pies. Yes hundreds! Have you seen me? If you have, you’d believe it. 😉   People think cooking is all about the recipes, but the reality it’s all about the ingredients. Especially the secret ingredient.   The pies will get topped with fresh whipped cream and some shaved chocolate just before being served after dinner.

Thanksgiving is about giving thanks.  This year I’m most thankful for having some pretty amazing friends who help me out when I’m desparate, put up with my BSR, and support me in my crazy ideas/projects.   I’m also thankful for my family, my health, my super cute niece and nephew, and of course I’m thankful for Ultimate Chocolate Pie of Doom for desert today.

Have a gobble gobble great Turkey day everyone!

 

Clubman handlebars installed on the Honda CX500

Clubman handlebars on Honda CX500

Clubman style handlebars installed.  I was ordering replacement cables, filters etc and this handlebar was just what I needed to get free shipping on the order.  Essentially adding it to the cart resulted in free new handlebars.  I’m thinking about firing up the CNC machine and making clamp ons for the forks for this bike but for now this is pretty good. I like the way the bars are pushed forward about 4 inches.  I don’t like the downward sweep of the bars though.  They would be better if it was about half the current angle.  I also have some concerns with the front brake master cylinder sucking air if I’m not careful with this set up.

Clubman handlebars on Honda CX500         K&N Cone air filters on cx500

Along with the new bars, I installed the new push pull throttle cables. The rebuilt carbs were also reinstalled.  My plan is to fire her up on a lil mini zacbuilt fuel tank to change the oil out post warm up and possibly ride her on the driveway a bit.

Fabricating a custom motorcycle seat for the CX 500

how to make custom motorcycle seat

The first step in any one off fabrication process is to make some templates.  I always have foam core, heavy poster board, and cardboard stock on hand for making quick templates.   In this case I started with cardboard, but it was too rigid and didn’t fit the contours of the frame well enough so I switched to poster board.   The result is the poster board template you see above in the picture.

how to make custom motorcycle seat       how to make custom motorcycle seat

The template is then used to transfer the pattern onto some 16 ga cold rolled steel.  There are many ways to cut sheet steel. I have a plasma cutter but you can see the rough hard raised edge it leaves on the left most part of the template picture above.  I chose to use an air nibbler to cut this template out.  The air nibbler allows for good clean edges and tight radius cuts without any distortion as you would get from shearing.    The next step was to run it through the plannishing hammer to shape the pan to fit the frame.  A bit of work with some slappers and it’s all tightly rolled up around the frame rails and fits well.

how to make custom motorcycle seat

As you can see, the seat pan fits well. I’m still debating on edge treatment. I think I might run a weld bead along it to round it some or possibly fold some 22ga steel over it and tack weld it in place so when I stretch the vinyl over the seat pan it does not wear and rip over time.   I’ve also started the rear fender as you can see above. I’m thinking about tucking it up into the seat pan and welding the two together into one part,  or possibly keeping it tight one the tire and mounting it to the rear swing arm.

This post Continues in part II here: CX-500 Cafe Racer – seat pan fabrication part II

 

Emergency Bathroom plumbing repairs

Glacier bay Model N2316 Toilet installation

I’ve often said, a Chemical Engineer is nothing more then a glorified plumber.  Having designed and built numerous industrial and laboratory chemical reactor set ups I find it to be true in some regards.  Last saturday I spent a great day shopping for micro four thirds cameras, and test driving Porsches with my friends.  I returned home in the early evening to find the first floor ceiling on the floor and water coming out of it.  With some reluctance and a good bit of colorful language I ripped open the access panels to determine exactly what was going on.   Turns out it was the shower valve inside the wall.  The toilet had died several weeks before and I had simply been procrastinating the repairs.  Since I was now forced to deal with the plumbing by the new issues I decided it was time to take action.

Machined acetal shower opening adapter flange     New Moen shower fixtures installed tub side

 

At some point in the past a less then adequate plumbing repair was made to the shower.  This made things fun for me.  In addition, it turns out the old panel mount shower fixtures used much larger openings, causing a real problem.   I decided to machine a new adapter ring. I went to Plastic Supply in Manchester, NH (it’s in the industrial park dr area) and Derek let me look through their drops bin for some cheap plastic to machine.  I picked some Acetal sheet up, along with some delrin and acrylic pieces I need for laser cutting stepstruder heads on the Reprap 3D printer project.   Other then machining the adapter (the white flange in the left pic above) the install of the shower was basic straight forward plumbing 101.

Closet Flange Repair adapter installed         High Efficiency Elongated Dual Flush All-in-One Toilet

The toilet project was not as simple as the shower.  While unlike the last toilet replacement 6 months ago, there was no damage to the subfloor on this toilet, the closet flange was 100% corroded away underneath this toilet.   Why people would use a painted steel flange I will never understand.  I generally prefer the all PVC flanges for residential and recently replaced a cast iron one in a friends flat in the city.  Both are much better alternatives to the painted steel ring flanges at Home Depot and Lowes.   I bought a repair flange, realizing it will likely only last so long.  I plan to redo the flooring in this bathroom next year sometime so I will replace the entire flange at that time.   The toilet I selected is the same model I used in another bathroom I recently renovated completely.  It’s a Glacier Bay Model N2316 High Efficiency Elongated Dual Flush All-in-One Toilet that works well and is a large improvement over the early 1970’s model that was in her before.   My month of touring Europe introduced me to the dual flush toilets.  I think it’s great, and at the same time will conserve water and reduce pumping costs.  Very happy with the new install.

A  Tip about successful wax ring sealing on a toilet install.  The trick to a successful toilet install is to have everything good and warm.  With electric heat in the bathroom I just turned it up to 85 F and came back 4 hrs later.  Everything in the room was toasty warm and equilibrated to 85F.   I know all wax rings say have the ring at least 70, but warmer is better.  I’ve done 6 wax ring installs this way and every time it’s worked perfectly with a 100% success rate.  So use electric heaters,  run hair driers, whatever you have to do to get the bathroom hot.  Preheating  the entire room, including the closet flange, the toilet and ring to 80+ will work wonders and insure a successful wax ring seal around the bottom of the toilet.

A second tip, that a reader suggested I should mention and I overlooked, is to use a nut and washer on the bolts on top of the closet flange.  This helps to keep the T bolts from shifting and moving around when you need to drop the toilet onto the wax ring.