"Lion Heart"

New Sharpie Skateboard, "Lion Heart". Just started last night... and finished this morning. I was bored and threw this together just to try the black-on-wood look and wanted to draw something more ornate than the past few boards, which were really clean and simple with lots of big bold areas of black and very little embellishment.

"Lion Heart" overall view 

"Lion Heart" Nose

"Lion Heart" Front Truck section

"Lion Heart" Center section

"Lion Heart" Center/Rear Truck section

Project "Give Me Speed" Update

Last night I went out into the garage and finished the last two letters. Then started toying with ideas on how to finish the back piece of steel sheet (ended up sanding it sideways to create a million scratches and give it some depth), and tacked on the letters to the sheet with some seriously overkill spot welding.

Still not quite done yet. I'm going to add a few more touches to get it perfect. So far, of all the projects I've worked on, I think this has come the closest to what I had pictured in my mind when I thought of it originally. Very happy with this one.

New Projects That I'm Not Ashamed To Show You Guys :)

Some recent other projects that have been created.

Project "Give Me Speed" and a few goodies that were made for my friend Motolady and her 'End of the World' Ride on 12-21-2012. 

Here's what the letters look like once they've been cut out with the strip applied to the sides to give them their dimension. The welds were ground down where possible, and in the tight spots (corners and inside the letters) the welds were kept as small as possible to be less obvious, while still appearing rugged and very masculine.

The letters have all been cut out of 14 gauge sheet steel and the sides will be added using 1/2" wide steel strip. Here's a photo of the letters all cut out (some with sides, some without) and trying to mock up the sign for spacing, playing with alignment. Just kind of a bit of planning ahead :) 

 A sharpie art skateboard for Motolady (link to her site at the top of the post, pretty cool). 

A painting for the same 'End of the World' party/ride for Motolady. The piece is meant to be sort of a 'take the power back' statement, while the wrench was meant to emphasize hard work and real labor. Painted with watercolors and metallic inks on paper, 12" x 18".

SV Racer Project Beginning...

I bought my '07 SV650S at the tender, young age of 19. I've been talking about racing ever since but haven't got around to ever being able to go an do it. This past summer I stopped at the closest track I could find to watch some motorcycle road racing, and yup, I still wanna go racing :)

After reading up on a few forums, the suspension of the bike seemed to be the weak link, while the motor seems to be a real gem. So suspension from a GSX-R 750 is what the doctor (me) ordered.

Upon opening the first box, the Red Cat insisted on helping with the unwrapping... Good Kitty...

Mm Hmm, I loves me some gold calipers :) These babies are from an '05 600cc GSX-R, eBay find for a few bucks and they look to be in decent shape, just a little dusty and could use a good cleaning.

2007 GSX-R 750 cartridge forks to finally do away with the stock damper rod forks from the SV. The main reason I chose these is because

A) they will fit the bike

B) they are compression/rebound damping adjustable, as well as preload adjustable (the stock SV forks are preload adjustable only.) This adds a level of security and safety when riding hard where the forks may need adjusting to give greater compliance throughout the day.

C) Longest fork springs of the bunch of options that would fit

D) They're sexy :)

Annnnnd to bolt it all together, VOILA!! (That's right, I know French). I got these handy dandy triple trees and wheel/rotor combo to match!

The top tree is from the 2004 600/750 models, this keeps the steering lock working properly, the ignition key/switch dealy jobby can still go in the same place, and the steering stem lines up. The only thing I'll need is to find a machinist to bore the hole for the steering stem slightly (after a few weeks of researching, this was the least of all the evils that were possible)

Ain't it puuurdyy!!! Once I get a few little knick-knacks like caliper bolts, a fender, brake lines, and oh-I-dunno maybe a tire, then I can bolt this thing together an probably part out the stock front end.