When boredom overtakes, make something, anything!

Perhaps Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, Kawasaki and BMW have a few drawings to work from.The ultimate design resultulting from the input of many departments and outside contractors. Hopefully this is not as the result of using unimagenative employees. Not much will be left to the imagination of one individual, and not much will be left to chance given the vast budgetts required to produce one model of motorcycle.

Your theory makes a nonsence of what is actually required.

Robert Butler

Oh, Yamaha definitely do, however, I'm hardly a commercial motorcycle manufacturer, just a backyard maker of stuff.  I don't claim to know everything, nor do I claim to even be good at what I do, but I get by.

Whether you agree with my methodology or not, it's how I build all this stuff, not a pencil or piece of paper in sight.  Oops, I did tell a little fib:  The two electrical harnesses I made were done from diagrams I drew, very hard to remember so many wires, so many colours.  And I did make a hall effect ignition system from plans I downloaded from the Webb - electronics is not my strong suite.  But I never used it, rather, I built a dual lobe points cam and points backing plate and converted the bike to a single points setup in lieu of twin points.

The rest of the stuff I designed and built live in my head.  Just a small selection, very little Yamaha left on this bike.

Edited By Tony sacc on 22/08/2023 00:50:38

I have been following this "topic" with interest. I have to say it has become very bitchy.

Tony has a method of working that gives good results but it is not the way most of the world works. Some companies, even aerospace companies (not in the UK or USA), use a trial make, assemble and then design for manufacture method. The results are not rubbish and it is as quick as the conventional method of design first.

JA

Most of Honda's, Suzukis's and Yamaha's GP Bikes of the Classic era were produced in very small numbers and it is difficult to imagine producing a multi-cylinder two or four stroke engine in capacaties ranging from 50cc to 500cc without drawings. Respectfully suggest you check the definition of diatribe, i was merely suggesting drawings resulting from inputs from many sources are the only way to produce a finished motorcycle rather than modifying an existing design.

Robert Butler.

I built my bike without a single drawing, plan or sketch and I know most people like myself do the same, and yet you keep harping on about Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha, et al. They are commercial enterprises, I am not!

I made dozens and dozens of mods for my TX650, hardly anything on the bike has not been modified, not a single plan, sketch or drawing. And whether you believe it or not, I am not alone, most custom bike builders are the same.

People like myself who build bikes and other things in their backyard workshops are not commercial entities.

Boredom has taken over, I’m off to make something.

We're at cross-purposes Tony!

All designers do trial and error to some extent, and it's normal to select, modify and combine existing parts. Though we could, no-one on the forum makes drawings of standard nuts and bolts; we just use them. What you're doing is good as far as it goes, but not the whole story.

The unplanned approach is OK up to a point, but it breaks when complex objects are made from scratch because no-one can hold all the details in their head. For example, engines are full of moving parts that have to fit together and rotate without hitting anything, and the engine won't work unless suck, squeeze, bang, blow are timed correctly, and the fuel mix is right, and the spark is hot and long enough to ignite the compressed mix. This type of design problem is only practical with research, planning, drawings and maths. Only a BF would cast and machine a cylinder block without being certain the pistons and cranks will fit into it.

Trial and error might be OK in a custom bike business, but on its own it would bankrupt a manufacturer. They always need a portfolio of design information that can used by others to build the item.

It's OK to be proud of results, but what you're doing isn't a better way of doing engineering. It's only a small part of what engineers do, and only suitable for simple stuff. What engineers mean by 'planning' covers a blurred range of ever increasing complexity from:

• ideas simple enough to hold in your head
• slightly more complicated ideas described on the back of an envelope
• complicated enough to require formal drawings
• So complicated that multiple formal drawings with version control are required. This level becomes mandatory as soon as more than one person is involved. Multidisciplinary teams, purchasing departments, subcontractors, production engineers, machine operators, accountants etc.
• Computer support essential - high-tech, CAD/CAM etc.

In a home workshop it's not unusual to find everything from bonehead to computers being applied more-or-less on the same project. In the right circumstances they're all useful, but 'planning on the run' is only a small part of a much bigger story. Might be a good way of customising a motorbike, but wouldn't work on a Boeing 787 or an internet router.

And because an engineer is a bloke who can do for a pound what any fool can do for a guinea, it's best practice to reuse other people's plans and methods. Believing originality is essential isn't engineering!

Dave

Yes, so am I.

I used to say a picure is worth a thousand words, not always true I have decided.

Pete

I haven't been following thi# thread particularly, but got especially frustrated by having to scroll through so many photos to get to the explanation of what we were looking at. Except there wasn't any. So, thougt I, let's go to the albums themselves. Lo! and behold, a quick look at a selection of albums revealed just photos again. Not a single word of description with any of the ones that I saw at random. That's the point at which I gave up and moved on.

John

There is no option of adding text in the albums. I'd be renewing your optical prescriptions if I were you. There may be a lot of pics, but there is also some text describing what the pics show between the pics and other text saying why the pics were uploaded.

Then how am I able to add a description to accompany the photos in my albums? I suggest that you revisit the "upload more photos" page and try the text box below the filename.

John

Tony,

I didn’t really want to get involved in this rather unseemly discussion, but I have just added descriptive text to one of my pre-existing photos.

It only shows when viewing the album, thus:

**LINK**

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/albums/member_photo.asp?a=59372&p=927243

MichaelG.

.

.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 23/08/2023 14:41:04

Oh er missus, a wedgie

Come to think of it, that's what I'll do, I'll add text under albums from now on, rather than post under the forum.  That should make all of you happy.

Edited By Tony sacc on 23/08/2023 23:13:26

Edited By Tony sacc on 23/08/2023 23:23:51

Nice drill jig. Can folks clear something up for me though. I was under the impression that drills bits only normally drilled over size if it was presented directly to the work piece. Does this still apply if you start the hole with a smaller bit first?

Can of worms there. The experts will tell you the pilot drill should be around the size of the i flute, which is a reasonable way of doing it, however, drill bits are all slightly under siz,ie, a 6mm bit will actually measure somewhere around 5.96mm, depending on brand and country of manufacture. If you simply want a 6mm hole to stick a 6mm rod through and fit isn't that important, just drilling with the 6mmill will suffice.

I'm not that rough, when I want a good fit, I'll drill with 5.5mm bit and follow up with a 6mm drill, that way the hole generally comes out 5.99/6mm. The experts will tell you to use a reamer, but we don't all have reamers of every size on the planet. so, make do with what you have.

Keep in mind also, that that 6mm bolt is not 6mm across the threads, it will be under 6mm, how much depends on how the thread was formed.

I generaly pilot anything over 6-7mm no matter how precise I want the hole. Smaller bits also find the centrepop mark easiier.

Now there's a can of worms, opened right up!

Edited By Tony sacc on 24/08/2023 07:18:36