Offbeat Bikes Issue 14

Issue 14

Contact:- offbeatbikesmagazine@gmail.com
Website:- offbeatbikesmagazine.co.uk
Facebook:- Offbeat Bikes Magazine
Hello Everybody,
Welcome to the fourteenth issue of Offbeat Bikes.
So, similar to the last issue, instead of a large magazine to
download, this smaller issue contains shorter articles with
more expanded versions available on the website. Just click
the relevant links if you want to read more. Hopefully, this
will mean that you can quickly go to the stuff that you’re
most interested in, without having to download the full
magazine.
Summer should be a busy biking season, but we’ve had
some baking hot summer days interspersed with torrential
downpours. A bit hit or miss really, but hopefully you’ve
been out and about. Let’s hope that autumn also brings
some settled riding weather.
Other things that I’ve learnt over the summer? That when
you buy a new project bike, DVLA can send a threatening
letter about impending prosecution because a bike is not
taxed or sorned quicker than they can send you the new V5
to allow you to tax or sorn it!
Next issue will be out at the end of November. Don’t forget
we are always interested in seeing pictures of your bikes,
reports of shows or events that you’ve organised or attended
and if you run a bike related business, we are only too happy
to do a feature on it.

Fe O - FO !
2 3
. ff
Iron oxide, rust, call it what you like, it’s usually an unwanted
addition to most motorcycles. There are many methods of
removing it, but some of the easiest are liquid rust removers.
Providing the part is either small enough to submerge, or be
filled with the solution, you can then walk away and let the
chemicals do their thing. The popular liquid at the moment is
distilled vinegar. I hadn’t tried vinegar before, but I have used a
couple of commercial products. So it seemed only right to try a
little test of the three liquids.
Now, before we start, the Metal Rescue used in the test I have
had for many years. It’s been well used and is now a long way
past its best. If I was using fresh product (it’s a big if, I’m
working on the assumption that the current formulation of
Metal Rescue is as good as the old version) then from my
previous experience of using the product, it would have won
this test. Here, though, is a summary of my current findings so
far:
Three rusty scraps of steel. These have been sat
outside for at least a year and are fairly scabby!

ABOVE: Start of the test. From L to R: Vinegar, Metal
Rescue, Hammerite Rust Remover Dip
BELOW: After 17 hours, none have removed the rust
completely, but the Hammerite is best so far.
After 17 hours, the Hammerite is doing
the best job with vinegar next and the worn
out Metal Rescue struggling to make an
impact.
THE TEST
CONTINUES ON
THE WEBSITE.
CLICK TO VIEW.

PRICE COMPARISON
£10.20 for 500ml
from Halfords.
Dilute with water
to make 5 litres of
rust remover dip.
Around £32
delivered from
Ebay. 414ml,
dilutes to make
3.78 litres.
29p for 568ml
from ASDA or
free if you find
some in the
kitchen
cupboard!

Plastic Fantastic
When I tell people that the
tank cover on my bike is
fibreglass and not hand
beaten from sheet metal,
they seem to dismiss it, as if
somehow it’s an easy option.
If they had been involved in
its construction, they may
well have a very different
view on it!
Yes, the resin and
fibreglass mat may not
require much skill to mix
and lay, and the materials
I believe that you can never
own too many books, tools or
motorcycles, so given that, it
should be no surprise that I
own three books on using
fibreglass - and one DVD.
The smallest tome is ‘The
Glassfibre Handbook’ by R
H Waring (ISBN: 978-085242-
820-7 around £8 new, half that
for a secondhand copy)
This is a comprehensive
book, but it isn’t an in depth
book. It’s great for an overview
used in making the pattern
may be easily worked with
standard hand tools, but
unless you’re making a
straight sided box, you still
need to have some pretty
good sculpting skills. So, it’s
not really an easy option,
but it is an easily accessible
option and if you’re
interested in finding out
more, here’s a short review
of some books on the matter.
More detail on the website.
of the subject or as a reference
book if you’ve done some
GRP work before, but need a
reminder. It gives a little bit of
information about a wide range
of GRP related issues, and so
is great for giving you ideas of
the types of things you can do
and the ways they can be
achieved, but if you’re really
new to fibreglass work you
might need another source of
information to help you on
your way.

‘Competition Car
Composites’ by Simon
McBeath (ISBN:
9781859606247
around £8 secondhand
for the old edition as
pictured. The newer
edition can be
purchased for around
£20)
Ignore the car
reference in the title,
much of the information
contained is equally applicable
to bike stuff. Simon writes
from his own experience,
working in a small shed,
producing products for his
own use - much like most of
us. He has, however,
thoroughly researched the
subject and has been able to
present it in such a way that as
well as being an informative
book, it is also a very readable
book.
It assumes no prior
knowledge of composite
materials and leads you
through all the steps needed
for you to successfully
produce your own mouldings.
It also discusses the use of
material upgrades, carbon fibre
etc. It doesn’t, however, cover
repair of existing GRP
components, so you’d need to
look elsewhere for that kind of
information.
Finally, on the book front I
have ‘The Fibreglass
Manual’ by Keith Noakes
(ISBN: 1-86126-575-1 around
£5 secondhand) If I didn’t
have this book, I wouldn’t
miss it. Not because it is bad,
it’s a reasonable book on the
subject, but the previous two
are much better.
For a review of the DVD and
some useful online resources
click HERE

Pattern Making FOR GRP
Unless you’re making a flat
side panel, most motorcycle
parts have nasty complex
curves which are difficult to
reproduce. You end up with
four main options:
1) Loads of car body filler,
built up and sanded to shape.
2) Moulding wax.
3) Chavant clay
4) 3D Printing
5) Foam
Number one is fairly cheap,
but quite hard work. Lots of
sanding. Lots of dust. Numbers
two and three are easily
worked, easy to add and
remove material, but it’s quite
difficult to get a fine surface
finish, and it would be
expensive if you’re making
something large. (Although,
only the top layer needs to be
wax or clay, you could use
anything you want to provide
the rough shape underneath.)
Number 4 only works if you
have access to a 3D printer
and are good at drawing stuff
More on Chavant clay
and moulding wax
HERE.
Extruded polystyrene foam. Easy
to shape and inexpensive to buy,
but is it the best choice?

using 3D CAD.
That leaves us with number
5, foam. Here again you have a
choice, the easiest (and
cheapest) to obtain is extruded
polystyrene (often called
Styrofoam). It’s used as
insulation in the building
trade, so it’s usually easy to
find. The other type of foam
often used for pattern making
is polyurethane. This is less
common to find (you’ll
probably have to get it from a
specialist supplier) and it is
much more expensive. Both
types of foam are easy to cut
and shape, but in order to
make a useable pattern, you
will need to apply some kind
of top layer that can be sanded
to a fine finish. (The foam is
also easily damaged, so a top
layer is also desirable to make
the pattern more robust.)
Choices of top layer include
car body filler, paint or
laminating resin. Here’s where
more even problems are
encountered. Polystyrene foam
is attacked by the solvents in
many paints, body filler and
polyester laminating resins!
(See pic. below). The easy
ways around this? Use the
expensive polyurethane foam,
or coat polystyrene foam with
(expensive) epoxy laminating
resin. For the cheaper, but
more time consuming, way
around this, CLICK through to
the article on the website.
Polystyrene test pieces coated with various
different top layers. Click HERE for a more in
depth discussion of the options.

euston rural Pastimes 2019
Not strictly a bike show, but
the rural pastimes event
usually attracts a good array of
bikes (plus many more cars,
stationary engines, tractors
etc.) although this year’s
weather meant that numbers
were down on previous years.
These were my favourites of
the day.
Click HERE for
more pictures.
1955 Panther Model 65

1952 BOWN 1F
Nice to see a CX500 and Superdream
in unmolested standard condition.

Luca’s Cafe Racer build has been featured before in the
magazine (starting way back in issue 5, I think). Like most of us,
he’s found that building a bike takes way longer than you think.
But, he’s kept at it and the finish is getting ever closer and I
definitely think it’ll be worth the wait. Here are a couple of his
latest pictures. More pictures and details of the build are now in
the gallery section of the website.
More pictures on
the website.
HERE

Shed Alarm
Cheap Ebay
shead alarm.
Is it a bargain
or b*llocks?
After the recent thunder
storms fried the control panel
to the burglar alarm system, it
was disappointing to find out
that spares for the 17 year old
system weren’t available - it
seems that like most things
nowadays, alarm systems have
gone wireless. My wired
system is now virtually
obsolete.
As a stop-gap, £5.50 was
invested in this keypad alarm
system from ebay. It’s a simple
device, wired to one magnetic
switch with about 6 inches of
cable, so you’d need to mount
it very close to the door /
window etc., which is
probably its biggest downfall -
if said burglar triggers the
alarm, one hefty whack would
probably silence the thing (it’s
not the most robust device.)
and it wouldn’t be too hard for
him to find, given that it’s
mounted right next to the door
that he’s just come through.
However, it’s not completely
useless. Cutting the fitted door
switch off and wiring my
existing magnetic switches (in

series) to the unit revealed that
the unit would work with
these. So as a temporary stop
gap, it’s not so bad. And, using
the longer cables of the
existing switches meant that
the control panel could be
mounted further from the
point of entry. So at least
they’ll have to try and find the
unit to smash it.
There are still a couple of
downsides. It’s battery
operated and I don’t know
what the battery life will be
like. And the sounder is not
that loud. If the unit is in your
shed, some way from the
house, then you may not hear
it, unless you’re a light
sleeper! If your shed / garage is
close to your house (so that
you could have the unit
indoors and extend the cable
to the magnetic switch) it
would be more useful. That
way, it’d be harder for the
intruder to sabotage the unit
and you’d be more likely to
hear the alarm.
So, in summary, it’s not that
great, but it only cost £5.50
(delivered!) so it isn’t going to
break the bank. And, if you
can work it so that the unit is
inside the house, it might
prove to be a cheap bit of extra
security. The big problem with
the unit I have is… that you
can’t rely on it to actually
work every time. Which is
bloody annoying!
BIKES AT THE SHUTTLEWORTH
COLLECTION

Better known for their collection of vintage aircraft, The
Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden, Bedfordshire also has
a fair few road vehicles, including a selection of motorcycles.
Here’s a couple of flat tankers to whet your appetite.
ABOVE: 1924
Sunbeam Model 2
BELOW: 1904
AURORA
CLICK FOR
MORE PICS

Fancy a flattanker
but don’t
want to build
your own. Or
fancy a flattanker,
but want
something more
reliable than a
pre-war
motorcycle? Well now you can buy a brand new one.
The revival of the Wardill Motorcycle marque (by a
descendant of the original company, no less) brings a brand
spanky new flat-tanker to the market. The Wardill 4 prototype
is pictured below, with the first production model currently
under construction. Visit their website for more details.
https://wardillmotorcycles.com/the-wardill-4/
The Wardill 4 prototype.
Photo courtesy Wardill Motorcycles

A brief round up of our latest project
In case you’ve forgotten,
here’s a brief recap of the
latest project.
The idea is to build a classic
(late 1970s) inspired dirt bike
using the rolling chassis from
a 1996 YZ125 and the 230cc
fourstroke engine from a
Chinese supermoto. It also
needs to be low enough to
accommodate my short legs,
and be built to MSVA regs to
allow it to go on the road.
What’s been going on since
May?
Well, it’s mostly been about
bodywork; seat base,
mudguards and petrol tank.
Seat base has been made in
fibreglass, using a modified
original as a pattern. The rear
mudguard is also GRP using
two existing mudguards to
provide the pattern And the
front mudguard - I bought
that one!
Want to see more on this
project? Follow its progress
each week on FACEBOOK,
or catch up with it on the
WEBSITE

In the last issue, we also
reviewed a hot stapler. It’s
been in use again since then
repairing the airbox of the
YZ125 donor bike. Although
this airbox is not going to be
used in its current form, I do
want to use it as part of a
pattern. It had been broken for
some time and was held
together with large quantities
of tape. A few minutes with
the hot stapler made the tape
redundant. Unfortunately, the
picture isn’t very clear. You
have to look hard to see the
staples. The inset picture
shows a close up view of one
of the staples. The staples
haven’t been trimmed and no
tidying of the melted areas has
been done as the inside surface
doesn’t matter for pattern use.
I can tell you that the repair is
far firmer than I expected.
If you missed the article on
the hot stapler in the last
issue, find it HERE.