Custom Guitar

I don't know why I haven't posted about this, but I'm having an acoustic guitar hand built to my specifications. The person doing it is Michael Robicheau http://mikerobicheau.blogspot.com/. From what I've seen so far, the craftsmanship is excellent. The attention to detail is unreal. The quality of work is what I'd expect to see on a $2000+ guitar. The design I chose is modeled after the Alvarez AD90. I wanted to incorporate most of the things I like about electric, but in an acoustic. A deep cutaway, ebony fretboard, jumbo frets, pinless bridge, low action. I'm extremely excited for it to be finished, I can't wait to try it out. If you are interested in repairs, set-up or having a guitar built, I would highly recommend Mike.

The sky

I looked outside today and the sky was really something. I've seen it lit up before, red, orange, and yellow, but nothing this intense. Almost as intense as a double rainbow. Really, the camera couldn't capture how bright and vivid it was...

School

Updates have been slow, mostly because I have no motorcycle to work on. As most of you know I'm back at school for my fourth and final year. I'm into midterms right now. I wrote one this morning and I'm feeling pretty good so I figured I'd finally update.

The semester is going by pretty fast. My worst one yet. A lot of classes, a lot of hard classes. Another few months and it's Christmas followed by one more semester. After that I just hope I can find a job.

Brutal

Back to school. Worst time yet, since I have an exam to write a few days after coming back. It's for a Chemistry course I was supposed to be working on all summer... we all know how that goes. Once it's over things should get better. More time to focus on the real classes. This is by far my most important/hardest semester. So 4 months of suffering then it's smooth sailing.

It's alive!

That's right, I actually got it running. I've been putting it back together in a hurry since I'm leaving for school in a couple days. I just wanted to get the minimums on it to see if it will run and it does. The electric start is finicky, I blame it on an old battery. It's disappointing it will have to sit now until I finish school. Oh well, at least I may have something to ride around on next summer!

I've still got it

Representing 800x600

A little more

Managed to squeeze in a little bike time and get a few more things back on. I'm starting to get the wiring done. It's hard at this point since the main bulk of the connections sits in the headlight. The headlight attaches to the forks, and I don't have any good forks. I just end up with a lot of loose wiring. I got the gauges on and most of the handle bar controls. I'm waiting on new grips. I'm very close to be able to start testing.

Switch internals

I've been doing some work around the handle bar region lately. Levers, ignition, switches etc. I started taking the switch apart and figured I should snap a few pictures to update this blog. I was hoping to finish it all up then get pictures, but it's taking too long. So here are a couple pictures of the switch and internals.

Almost ready to test

I'm getting pretty close to being able to test this bad boy. I put all the major electrical components on today, along with the triple trees and new bars. I swapped out the stock motocross bars for some drag bars. I've also included a picture of the gas tank I'm working on so you can get a feel for where this bike is going. Once I get the gas and oil tank finished up, throw on the wiring harness, it will be time to see if it runs.

AS3

The Gods of 70's street bikes were looking down on me today when they brought me this Yamaha AS3 for $70! 100% original and 95%+ complete. From what I can tell, the only thing it needs is two carbs. It even still has the infamous rubber boots with the original clamps. The bad news. The front forks are finished, both bent and dry. Inside the gas tank is pretty bad, probably do some electrolysis and naval jelly. The seat pan is on its way out, but the original cover is in excellent condition. 2800 original miles, brakes work, throttle works, clutch works, transmission shifts, engine is not seized.

Project lawnmower

I decided to add a new section to my blog. This "Projects" section will mostly show everything I work on aside from motorcycles. I really had to start it after todays find.

So, this entire summer I've been complaining about our electric lawnmower. Those of you who have used one will understand, those who haven't NEVER BUY AN ELECTRIC LAWNMOWER. I'm not talking about battery operated lawnmowers, I'm talking about extension cord, plug into the wall style. Whoever invented these should be shot. It should be fairly obvious to anyone why this is a terrible idea. First off, most lawns are 500 square feet +. Most houses have one plug outside. Long extension cords, sharp spinning blades, cords tangling getting in the way, 30+ degree weather. It's just a disaster.

Back to the project. Today, being garbage day, I noticed a lawnmower on my neighbour's sidewalk. Beside that lawnmower was a collapsed cardboard box with a picture of a lawnmower. Obviously he got a new lawnmower and was throwing the old one away. Was there anything wrong with the old one?

I wheeled it into my back yard, pressed the choke button a few times, five or so pulls later it fired right up! I cut a bit of grass with it, worked like a dream. Aside from being a little dirty everything seems alright. I flipped it over, not to my surprise the blade was dull and neglected.

Good thing my friend had just purchased a bench grinder as a gift for me a few weeks ago.

I went to work for no more than ten minutes and the blade came out fairly decent.

I reinstalled it and gave it a couple more pulls. Nothing. Choked it a few more times followed by a good 20 pulls, still nothing. I gave up. It is fairly low on gas so I'll try adding some and see what happens. Otherwise I'm sure it could use an oil change and carb cleaning. Really though, how can you go wrong with a free lawnmower? Just goes to show, you never know what people will give away.

More progress

As you can see from the picture I installed the carb with a pod style filter. I went with the pod filter for a few reasons. It looks way more bad ass, it's way cheaper than buying OEM, and maybe it will even slightly enhance the performance. I figure it's a win win. I also attached the swingarm and rear shocks. Cleaning up the rear shocks was time consuming, they were coated with 40 years worth of grease and oil. The good thing is that all the grease and oil prevented them from rusting. They almost look like new! I decided not to bother re-sanding and painting the swingarm, the paint I'm using isn't gas/oil resistant and will just get chipped/worn away anyway. Besides, the main goal of this project was to get the bike running, and if I want to achieve that before I leave for school I've got to get moving.

Minor setback

Well, I'm a little disappointed today. So far I've done some painting with moderate success. Today, for some reason, the clear coat decided to react with the base and shrivel up like a dick in a pool.

It's not a huge deal, I'll just have to sand and repaint, more of an inconvenience. Just goes to show you should buy the same brand base and clear. The weird thing is I used the same paints on the frame and it worked fine.

Carb cleaned

So I finally got around to cleaning up the carb. Before I got the bike I had heard of carbs but wasn't really familiar with their parts of operation since my generation operates with fuel injection. I have learned carbs are still used in a lot of motorcycles. Now I realize how important they are and how crucial it is to keep them cleaned. I cleaned this one using the soda blasting method (worked well), carb cleaner, Amway metal polish and Nevr Dull. I should have taken before pictures but I forgot. I also replaced the needles, jets and made a new gasket.

Motor mounted

Found a bit of time and managed to get the motor mounted in to the frame. I went with the black/silver paint scheme on the cylinder and head. All you really do is paint the cylinder and head black and then sand the fins to bring out the aluminum. Hoping to continue with the assembly this week.

Gibson Southern Jumbo

My good friend purchased this guitar a while back. When he bought it the bridge was lifting off the body, not a huge deal since the guitar is 30+ years old and it was an amazing deal. A guy at the place he bought it said he could fix it for $40 or $50 (I can't remember). Seems reasonable enough for a $2000+ guitar. Well, he had his way with it, needless to say the bridge lifted right back up.

I've done my fair share of guitar repairs and research, everywhere I read it seems you need to use animal glue for acoustics. Well, when the guitar was fixed the first time, it was done "properly" and animal glue was used and, well, it didn't work. Now, from a normal carpentry point of view I see, the body of the guitar is wood and the bridge is wood. So.... why not use wood glue? Well, I'm attempting my fix using Gorilla Glue brand wood glue. I squeezed it under the bridge and tilted the guitar (the glue is thin and runny) to get it all the way under. Clamped it with these two clamps (wrapping the ends in cloth to prevent damage) and as of now it's been sitting for 24 hours. I plan on letting it sit for another 24, maybe even longer. I'm fairly confident this will work. We'll have to wait until my friend gets back to try it out and see how it holds up.

Wedding/Frame

Another busy weekend, as usual. My long time best friend got married and I was the best man. Everything went very smoothly and the wedding was great. I may have had a bit too much to drink, but I feel I did prove myself on the dance floor. Ha.

On the motorcycle side of things, all I was able to do was snap a picture of the painted frame (I promised I would). Here it is.

Street fighters

I've recently developed an obsession with street fighter styled bikes. I don't know what it is. The power of a sports bike with more of a raw, powerful, bad-ass styling? Maybe it's just the name, street fighter. Either way, I love it.

Bass working, frame painted

I finally had the chance to tear the bass open. It was pretty easy to access the electronics, just had to loosen the strings and remove a few screws. I replaced the input jack completely, since I had spare. The only problem I found was that the input jack wasn't grounded to the pots. Once I added the extra wire, it worked like a charm. Sounds half decent for a $40 bass, plays very nice. I just have to spend a little time to intonate, adjust the truss rod and action and I'll be in business. I hope to test it on the half stack in the basement soon.

As for the motorcycle, I've got the final coat of clear on the frame. That puts the frame at two coats of primer, four coats of paint and two coats of clear. I also have the cylinder and head all painted up. I went with the high heat black paint and sanded edges scheme. I also picked up some cork gasket material from Parts Source for $9.99. It's worth it since I already need a new carb gasket and cylinder gasket which would run me well over $10. I'll try and get some pictures up sometime this week.

New bass

I did plan on using this blog for things other than the AT1 build. I am busy with a lot of different things right now.. I recently stumbled across a few great deals involving guitars. I currently have a bass half stack, two heads actually, but no bass. I came across an old Léro bass on Kijiji. I couldn't pass it up at $40 with a case. It's an older bass, not sure exactly how old, and it's made in Korea. It's in near mint condition still with the original "Inspected by" sticker. All it needs is possibly a new input jack, or just some soldering, and a few adjustments made. It's a short scale and has quite a beefy neck. I haven't had time to get this done because I also bought a cheap electric guitar and amp that I'm setting up for a flip.

So my entire bass set up is as follows.
-15" cab with Peavey TNT speaker ($20 for cab, $50 for speaker)
-Behringer BX3000T Ultrabass ($40)
-Léro ($40)

The whole set up only cost me $150. Pretty decent I think! Even if it's not the best gear, doesn't matter to me since I'm not really a bass player. Here is a picture of the bass.

Gas tank

I discovered what the best part from the parts bike is... the gas tank! This tank is in near mint condition. A couple tiny spots of rust on the outside, no rust on the inside and no dents. Since it's in such beautiful shape I'm tempted to sand it with a high grit paper and just clear coat it. I started stripping it, you can see the original paint scheme with decals.

Frame, almost ready for paint

First I pressured washed it, then sanded it, then hung it up and coated it with naval jelly. I'm going to re-coat it tomorrow, pressure wash it then paint it. I've painted a few other things as well (exhaust, kickstand, gauge brackets) while I was waiting for the parts bike. Once the frame is ready I can really get going. There will be many updates coming since I should be able to make a lot of progress in the next few weeks.

Busy

It's been a very busy month so far. Between renovations around the house, getting the apartments rented, school, work, the bike and everything else, I haven't had much time to update this blog. I am making progress though. I'll have some really good stuff later this week as I have begun painting parts of the bike. Hoping to get the frame painted this week. Now that all my parts have come in, I can really get this project going.

Parts bike

I've been circulating an ad on a local classifieds site in hopes of finding some parts locally. Much to my surprise, someone responded. He had a bike, fairly complete for a very reasonable price. I'm pretty sure it's an AT2, with many parts interchangeable. I bought it today and I'll be picking it up sometime this week.

MTO

So I have interesting news on the bike, I haven't been working on it lately, instead I've been working on getting an ownership since the bike came without.

I went to the MTO and they told me to bring in the VIN and whatever else I had. I brought them in the VIN, a license plate and a receipt from the seller. The license plate was useless and illegal since it was registered for a different bike (kept it anyway) and the VIN had results! Last "registered" owner was in 1985 from someone very close to where I live (which is great because the owner before him was a 4 hour drive away.

I was instructed by the MTO to get a hold of the last registered owner and have him sign a few papers. If this was possible I could get the ownership easily. Otherwise I would have to show I took necessary steps to get a hold of him, get an affidavit done and then maybe I could get a new ownership made.

I went home hoping he would be easy to get a hold a hold of, looked him up on Canada 411. First name that came up matched his address. I called it and a woman answered after two rings. I asked to speak with "David". "David" answered the phone and explained to me he bought the bike in the early 80s in Chapleau. When he get it he had the engine rebuilt and it never did run "all that great". The last time he ran it was in Oshawa in the 80s. He said he would be more than happy to meet up with me and that he still might have the original ownership.

So, I'm meeting up with him tomorrow and now getting the ownership for a 39 year old bike will be a breeze. At least one thing is going smoothly!

Wikipedia

Since I haven't had the time to do much work on the bike lately, I decided there is still something related to it I can do. I created the Wikipedia page for the Yamaha AT1. Check it out, contribute to it, or just use it for information. Oh yeah, on a side note I did learn a few things about my bike which is going to cost some more money. The cylinder head is cracked between the two spark plug holes and the handle bars are bent. Oh well, now I can get those drag style bars I've always wanted.

Water in the crankcase

Well, the previous owner was a genius. He checked for spark, and when he realized there was none he left the spark plug out. He also left the bike outside. One good rainfall and next thing you know there is water in the crank case. Good thing I caught it now or it could have been much worse. I used a full can of oil to flush it out. The crank itself is a little bit rusty, but it seems that it should be usable. Here is a picture of the water/oil mixture.

Strip

Well, I decided while I'm waiting for parts to come in, I might as well do it right. I stripped the bike right down to the frame. Hoping to get the rust sandblasted off this weekend. From there I'll go with a few coats of primer, probably a gloss black and clear coat. I'm on a budget here, so it's all going to be spray paint (rattlecan). Here is the frame, in all its glory.

Progress..

has been pretty slow lately. I've ordered a few required parts (spark plug wire, wiring harness, etc) which I'm waiting on. In the mean time I've been cleaning up the tachometer, and rebuilding the ignition switch. I'll get some pictures up when they are complete.

Electrolysis

This is one of the neatest things I've stumbled across, and it works for more than just gas tanks! So, the inside of this tank was obviously rusted, being a '71 and sitting for god knows how many years. I decided to try the electrolysis method I had seen others do. Well, it definitely works, and very well. Here is a picture of 1/2 the rust that came out of the tank (did it twice).

FiT program

So the government has started a new program to push renewable energies. The Feed in Tariff program (FiT) is a way to encourage homeowners and businesses to install renewable energy devices (solar, wind etc). This program encourages people to install wind or solar and feed the energy back into the grid. This sounds good to me.

Well, the government will buy that electricity for 80 cents per kWh. This is the problem. Currently we are producing the majority of our power by the means of nuclear, at which it can be sold for around 6 cents a kilowatt. Now the government will pay you over 13 times as much to produce the SAME amount of energy, by means of solar or wind. Does anyone else see how absolutely ridiculous this is? Just wait for the tax increases to fund this program (HST, increased hydro bills, etc).

The OPA claims projects are already producing over 300,000 kWh. That's an extra $222,000 every hour more than it would cost nuclear to produce it. Yes, there will be increased government revenue through the taxes generated from the sales and installation of these systems, but it nowhere near offsets the expenditures to fund the program. This program will cost the government millions of dollars per year. Just something to think about.

Let the mayhem begin

Pretty good news. Started taking the bike apart, everything is going fairly smoothly. The best news though, 120 psi of compression. As the bike sits now, there is no spark. My next steps are completely taking out the wiring and starting with just the basics to try and get spark. From there I may work on the electric start.

Time to get started

So I finally got the bike into the basement, about 30 minutes ago actually. My friend helped me. We had to wheel it up a set of stairs, then down a set of stairs and around a narrow corner. It was a perfect fit. Good thing the front brake is semi functional or it might not have went so well. Stay tuned!

...

Time to get things rolling. The vacation is over, exams are over and the move is over. It's time to try and find a job and start getting things done. I'll be updating the blog more regularly now, especially with the motorcycle once I get it into the basement.

Exams

It's that time again; well actually, that time is almost done. As of now I've written five exams and have two to go. The first four went well, really well for the most part. Today I wrote my fifth in Optical Fiber Communications. What a disaster that was. My new goal is aiming for a pass and hoping everyone else did as bad as I did. When it comes down to it, what's done is done and in the long run this exam will have no effect.

Four days left of this, then it vacation/summer/motorcycle.

Infectonator

I've just wasted a few hours on this game, beat it, but kind of disappointed. The object of the game is to spread a virus through cities which turns people into zombies. The zombies kill the people and once you reach the objective (kill a certain number of people) you beat the level.

You don't really DO anything in the game besides click a few times. There is an upgrading system which is what keeps you playing, but the game is fairly anticlimactic as the ending occurs when you destroy the last city, in no particular order. At this point you submit a high score. Really the accumulation of upgrades and what not serves no purpose other than to beat the game faster. The faster you beat the game the better the score.

Either way, it's a decent way to kill a few hours. Back to studying.
Infectonator

Yamaha Enduro 1971 AT1C

Something I never thought would happen has finally happened. I bought a motorcycle. The seller was listing it as a "Yamaha Enduro 175". It was sold as a parts bike because it is not currently running. When I went to check it out I could see that it was about 95% complete, as far as parts go. I haggled him down to $100 flat. When I got it home I started doing some researche and learned that it's actually an AT1C, 125cc. These bikes are interesting because they have both kick and electric start.

I was told from the seller the main problem is the electrics. It seems someone did their own wiring job. I'm hoping to rip it all out and try to just get it running with the kick start. I haven't even had time to test the compression yet. My goal is to get the engine to idle by the end of the summer. Once I do this I can tear it all down and start making it look nice.

Summer

Things are finally winding down. In three days I get to go home for a week. Unfortunately after that short break I have to write seven exams. Seven exams that I won't be well prepared for. Once the exams are done things get really good. I finally get to go home for more than a week or two at a time. I also finally get to take a well deserved vacation with my wife. Then it's back to the stress of trying to find work while doing more school courses. One more year of this shit, should be worth it. If becoming an engineer doesn't make me any smarter, at least I'll have neat looking ring, right?

Motorcycles

My interest in motorcycles is turning into an obsession. I must spend about an hour a day looking at used motorcycles and I'm a member of two different motorcycle forums. The sad part is I don't even have one yet. I have my M2, a jacket and a couple helmets but no motorcycle. It will be at least another year until I get one. For now I'll just start saving pictures of ones that I like. When I first started looking I was mostly interested in sport bikes, but lately I've been looking at a lot of cafe racer style bikes. More recently I saw a picture of a 2002 Yamaha Road Star Warrior. It seems almost like a mix between a cruiser and sport bike. I think it looks great.

Call of Duty

So I'm still playing Call Of Duty 4 since my computer is too outdated to run MW2. Even playing on an old computer with minimum settings I pulled off my best game to date. Going for all the golden guns now. Pretty busy with school, so I don't have too much time to play.