Chopperin': oil tank mounts and axle adjusters

Little more bike progress today.

I wanted my axle adjusters to be more than just hex stock. I milled a little out to break 'em up and add a bit of visual appeal.

Woodworking: prepping some new chisels

I have a couple of small woodworking projects that I would like to work on. Indirectly, I have some stuff on the drafting board that will require a small amount of woodworking as well.
As we all know, I sold off most of my wood tools. Included in those sales were my Lie-Nielsen chisels. I have a few antiques and a few new Stanley's, but nothing compares to a Lie-Nielsen chisel.
I set off into the land of internet shopping and ordered a 1/2" & 1/4" chisel. As I expected, my new chisels are super nice and I'm all in love with them and stuff.
This morning, I wanted to take care of the prep work to get them ready for use.

Here goes:

Some time ago, I made a sharpening set up based on the Lie-Nielsen design available on their web site. I'm not going to get into the construction, as it is pretty basic. You'll get the idea as we go along. I made it so that I could clamp it onto my work bench using my surface vice and a dog.

Someone mount that oil tank already!

I have a lot of bad habits. I smoke, I drink, I'm lazy, and the list goes on and on. One of my worst habits is that I will hem and haw over a decision for days, weeks, months.

They say that perfection is the enemy of good enough. I'm not a perfectionist, I can't be. But good enough isn't always good enough. What happens, is that I have an idea, then a little voice in my head will shut down my motivation and stop me from doing anything. What's really happening is that I know my initial idea isn't up to par with my vision. So, basically I will keep screwing around and circling the project until the better idea shows up.

Sometimes, this habit just makes me stressed out, and ultimately late. Other times, that little voice has stopped me from doing something that wasn't as good as it could be. In this case, something better came along, and I'm digging it. Let's take a look now, at the first stage of mounting my new oil tank into the Organ Donor.

The oil tank has three mount points. It will tie into the back bone here, and on the cross member under the seat. Drill guides help in these matters. If you ever need to center a hole through tubing, you should make one.

A Taste of the Flavor to Come

While I've been relatively absent here (again), it doesn't mean that I haven't been busy. I've been helping a friend bring back to life a really cool mid-century surf board table, and that has occupied most of my home shop time. I've been baking a lot. I bake more than most people, but lately the oven has been cranking.

Baking and working in my home shop has meant that I've taken a break from bikes for just a little while. I lost my muse there for a bit. The muse is coming back, and the ideas are flowing again. Hopefully that translates into making some really cool stuff for my new Triumph.

For some time now, I've been throwing around the idea in my head of making baking/kitchen tools here at home. The only way to do it practically and not waste precious resources is to make more than I need and find a venue to sell them. My investment into making say, a single tart ring is roughly the same as if I wanted to make a dozen. To that end, I am starting to plan out a few products and test them out. First off will be a couple of simple tools. The simplest of all? The bench scraper or pastry scraper. I've heard chefs use the terms interchangeably. I have two test pieces in the works, and I'm using them as my start point.

A pair of pastry scrapers. A very useful tool in the kitchen. I have never been satisfied with the one that I have, which is why I want to make a new one. These will have wooden handles, and one will be a test for a curved edge. I already know I'll want to drop a gauge thickness.

On the bike side of things, I'm figuring out how to make some pull back fender struts. I'm not worried about carrying a load on the fender. I'm not into carrying a passenger, if you want to ride...get your own! The final piece will be stainless steel, it's just cheaper to test with mild steel first.

I need to get off my arse and stay off it! We'll see how this goes. Usually I only get lazy when I don't have a plan or materials. I have a plan now, and most of the resources required to carry it out. Off to the races.