Beside myself

The boys in black and gold are going to the Stanley Cup finals vs. Vancouver! Can't put it into words that you'd understand unless you're part of the Bruins faithful. I was in college the last time they made it this far... and that was a long time ago:)

Friday night on the town

Joke

Heard this one the other day, made me laugh.

"What are the 3 positions of a Brittish headlight toggle switch?"

"Off, dim, and flicker."

Show Class Mag

First issue is finished up! Hit up the links to order a mag or some merch!

Show Class main site
Show Class store

Peeved at Paughco

I give Paughco two thumbs down.

Ok, I've been holding this in for a while now and I just can't take it anymore. Four months ago I went to my friend Brian at JEM Cycle to order some tank shells from Paughco. I am not a Paughco dealer, but Brian is and he treats me well so there was no immediate reason for me to become a dealer at the time. The below is a re-enactment of the conversations that have gone on with a Paughco sales rep over the last few months.

Brian- "Hey, how are you (blank), I need to find out if you have item # (blank) in stock."

Paughco- "Yes we have 25 in stock right now, how many do you want?"

Brian- "I'll take 20 of them."

Paughco - "Okay"

A little while later that day.

Ring-a-ling

Brian- "Hello, JEM Cycle."

Paughco- "Brian, This is (blank), we're only going to ship you 10 of those tank shells."

Brian- "Why's that? You have 25 in stock and I'd like to order 20. I don't understand why you wouldn't want to sell something you have in stock."

Paughco- "Well, we don't want to run out of them. We'll be getting another shipment soon, we can ship you the remaining 10 shells when that comes in."

Brian- "I still don't understand, I want 20 but I'll take 10 right now."

Five or more phone calls/voicemails to Paughco over the next 3 months resulted in either non-returned calls or no clear answer to whether they could send us the remaining 10 tank shells... until 2 weeks ago.

Ring-a-ling

Paughco- "Hello Paughco, (blank) speaking."

Brian- "Hello, this is Brian at JEM Cycle. Could I please speak to (blank)."

Paughco- "Yes, just a minute"

(blank) @ Paughco- "Hi Brian, what can I do for you today?"

Brian- "I'd like to get those 10 tank shells that you wouldn't ship me 4 months ago."

Paughco- "We have them in stock, I'll send you the 10 you need."

Brian- "Thank you."

later that week

Ring-a-ling

Brian- "Hello, JEM Cycle."

Paughco- "Brian, I'm going to send you 5 tank shells."

Brian- "Why, you said you had enough in stock to send me 10?"

Paughco- "Well, we don't have enough in stock now to send you 10."



Ok, long story short. Paughco calls back and said they only have 2 in stock and offered no specific reason why they hadn't shipped the remaining 10 shells at the time they had them in stock. My theory is that Paughco wants to sell 1 or 2 shells to a customer for full catalog pricing plus a ridiculous shipping charge rather than sell multiples at the discounted price, with free shipping to a dealer. I am through dealing with this company. I specifically wanted to deal with them because of what they stood for, what they've done for the custom motorcycle industry, and their motorcycle parts lineage. Much of their products are marked as being "Made in USA", which means a lot to me... but the tank shells are punched out overseas just like every other company. I am currently investigating another tank shell connection and will never recommend or buy another Paughco product... ever.

Edit: It has been brought to my attention that Paughco may be holding onto shells for the making of their own complete tanks. This I understand, but just let the customers and dealers know how many they can order when they ask about stock availability. Paughco product has always been top notch, I just wish their communication skills were the same.

Weekend pics

It's Saturday and I'm working on my own bike, woohoo!

Wide tunnels

Squeezing a big tunnel into a 2.2 gal mustang style tank so it'll fit AJ's newer sporty backbone. Seems like an easy task, but this one had my number for a while before I figured it out.


Big tunnel in.


Making the tabs.



Tabs fitted and welded on.



Add the petcock bung and this one is ready to go. Thanks a ton for your patience AJ!

Sprung

Because of the stud setup on this seat, I had to move the cross tube back a bit and weld a support plate/gusset to weld the lower spring spuds to. I probably could have made a bent cross tube to work with the springs but it couldhave been a gamble. I wanted to make sure I had sufficient room to mount the fender.

More tech

Some more tech videos/articles being worked on for this month, print and web. Just finished a little how-to video of using a manual tubing bender and other assorted machinery to fabricate some handlebars for the fine fellas @ ChopCult, so check it out!

Go B's!

I just about crapped myself watching the Bruins-Flyers series last season. I don't care about that right now, we beat Montreal (which is enough for me), and lead the Flyers series 2-0. No matter what happens, I'm Boston thru and thru and will never abandon the B's. Hockey is the only sport that really brings the jockish side of me to the surface. C'mon, in what other team sport can you punch someone in the face and only get a 5 min penalty? Pure gold.

Sometimes they come back

I had originally installed a David Bird hardtail on this oif Triumph frame. After it left my shop, the details are fuzzy. The owner tried some welding on it and had some issues with contamination, brought it to a 3rd party to fix his welding and that gentleman blew through some lower sections of the frame. Somewhere along the line someone also got too aggressive with a flap wheel and just about ground through some of the frame tubing. Well, I have 8+ hours of repair work into this frame and just a little bit more to go.

some heat

From time to time I find myself needing to heat bend a set of bars that have already been made. Maybe it's because I didn't pay attention to what bars I was supposed to be making, maybe it's because a particular design lends itself to heat bending instead of using my tubing bender, or maybe it's just me wanting to play with torches.

I used to flip the bars upside down and tack the bar ends down to the table, bolt a leverage bar to the bar mounts, and go to it with the oxy acet. Problem was that the tubing in the uprights of the bars wasn't being held steady enough on some bar designs due to some flex while the leverage was being applied during bending. Well a solid mount upper tree, some shorty risers, and a long leverage bar bolted in to the stem hole solves that problem... as long as the bars are 3.5" upright spacing. Thick walled tubing+heat evenly+bend slowly=bars done.

Been busy

Shop has been quite busy as of late, trying to catch up on some work that I've been backed up with. Bunch of customers bars shipped or shipping this week.

rabbits forward swept

An old song and dance re-recorded here at the shop in stainless.