My first CUSTOM build

Honestly I think it's a good looking bike. If you made it a fat tire frame, seat pan and added footpegs on the frame (but don't delete the pedal shaft) I could see myself spending $500-600 bucks. I don't know if you have any equipment and experience with sheet metal work but a nice tire hugging rear fender would really look great with it.

These are things that are going on bike..just not finished yet

considering the workmanship...as a one off, id say around about 4000+.

get the jig set up, and a pile of pieces ready to assemble and weld em all up, en masse...probably around 1500, and that would be bare.

i still couldnt justify spending that much, but that would be the price id expect.

all these other replies seem to be missing a zero... such is life when dealing with tightwads that havent tried making a frame from scratch they dont realise how expensive tools, materials and labor actually are... the whole design process. the knowledge required. the stuffups and the hours spent on CAD or similar, haggling for best prices for profile cutting parts, blah blah blah... and that you actually have to make some kind of profit... oh, yeah, youre just volunteering, arent you? sorry a not for profit organisation. yeah, right...


personally, i would have gone morini type motor, simply because they are narrower, lighter... those pitbike engines are way too heavy (and wide!) for my liking, though ive often contemplated making just a crankcase for the top end and using that...


oh lord, gimme some walls on my workshop! (yeah, horizontal rain is really nasty, especially as its winter down here, and the breeze doesnt really assist with welding nicely. breeze? "Gale" now the neighbours have cleared the fence line! constantly! erk!) currently saving for a new cargo container, but until then, any walls i erect will just have to be pulled down again

edit...now i scanned the whole thread i realise that you are just basically doing the design and (possibly?) the cnc work?

so just how much have you invested? a fair bit, i dare say!

all the above applies. tightwads. this thing would be virtually indestructible when complete! the engine should last for years. the components are top shelf. cro mo, as long as its welded nicely(and i bet that cost ya, that welding) will still be good when the grandkids have zztop type beards...

considering that some people will fork out several thousand on the bare frame for a HD chopper... several hundred for a small, desktop engine that does nothing but looks shiny and starts occasionally... yeah, i still think that even my recommended prices are bordering on slavery. it aint "made in PRC"!

Well I'm glad someone hit the nail on the head. I will say this though based on the way the frame is setup utilizing different engines would be a piece of cake. In regards to the amount of time and money I've spent so far it's around $3500 currently but I'm not done so that will go up but I also understand that the first one is always way more expensive. But that's only because I will and have miss measured a part and or I didn't like how a part looked. Thankfully I'm a cad designer for a living and I'm very mechanically inclined. For someone who doesnt have all the tooling and knowledge I have to get a build like this up and going would have already been twice if not tripled the cost that I've put into this thus far.

The good thing about designing everything I have so far in cad is that I have all the tool paths saved and marked. So when it comes to making the part again I throw the part to be machined on the cnc and get to machining with 100% accuracy. That alone is a huge saving to me but the machine is a 30k dollar machine.

I also could have done the welding and bending but I only have a mig welder and I'm not going to weld chromoly with a mig. The good thing about using the guy I'm working with is I know his work and he understands I don't like half arse workmanship. He also is assisting with any fine detail things I might miss only because I know a second set of eyes is always a good thing on a project of this scale. At the end of the day though even if I don't get this to be a frame kit I'm going to have one hell of a ride but I'm not done yet so I'm not giving up on something I've wanted to do for the last four years.

Jack Shaft Hub

Here are some pics of the jack shaft hub finally machined out. I like how it turned out. Only thing I need to do to it which unfortunately I don't have the tool to do it is to put a key way slot inside the ID of the hole. Otherwise she is ready to roll and I got the chain lining up nicely. Also, just a teaser I'm in the works to have a custom rear hub made in the masses and looking to sell at an awesome rate once we get them in production. Ride safe and if it ain't fun don't do it.

got a boring bar for the good old HSS?

set it on center, grind the tool for cutting the appropriate way, into the chuck, just take 0.01 cuts with the spindle brake on. works like a charm done it a few times now takes a few seconds. i could never justify the few hundred dollars for a real keyway broach...

the qctp makes it easier for centre heights. one day ill get one for my big lathe

when drilling the holes in the hub...remember that the two flanges have the holes "alternating" on each side. the flipping around and re-indexing is the trickiest part.

I had a friend tell me about using an old boring bar for cutting a keyway. Just don't have any old ones to use at the time.

As far as the hub that is getting made at a shop I'm working with...can't do a 100 hubs in the time I'd like because well honestly I don't have the time..we got an awesome deal..and I built everything in cad and flange holes are counter clockwise or I guess you could say offset from its sister hole on opposite flange. Will look similar to the hub I have on my build but there will be two spindle versions to accommodate almost any frame that utilizes a 135mm dropout spacing..and it will be 36 hole

Using lathe to cut key way slot

I was lazy and didn't want to cut key way slots in jack shaft hub but after calling three machine shops that either couldn't do it or didn't understand using a lathe and cutting it I decided that I'll just suck it up and do it myself..just tired because I'm moving and I hate moving..so I had two free hours and just got it done..used a boring bar..made a cutter and starting cutting..here is the result from cutting a key way on the lathe.

gotta be concerned when they dont understand how to cut a keyway with a lathe... what would they do if their computer broke down and they were back to having to use a slide rule? calculating extended fractions to find suitable change gear ratios for milling helicals...ouch!

looking good easy once you do it. did you practise on some scrap or just run the risk?