OzVMX Forum
Clubroom => General Discussion => Topic started by: steve234 on October 07, 2016, 08:48:32 pm
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Just looking at what would be considered essential tools, machines etc for restoring bikes.
Cheers,
Steve
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Dremel and attachments!
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Printing press. a good one that can print holograms on plastic.
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Depends on far you want to go . When I started restoring my first Wasp in 1992 I thought buying a blasting cabinet was all I needed . Then I got sick of waiting getting wheels spoked , I built a machine to build wheels and drill rims ( sold 4 more to wheel builders in different states ) . Then came the hydro blaster and I thought that was it . Not for long . I got sick of waiting to have anodizing done , so I thought stuff it and got myself a anodizing , a zinc , nickel and chroming facility . That means I had to get a new shed built to house it all . Just finished that today . As you see it never ends . What is essential and what is not . How long is a piece of string , when do we have enough bikes ? I enjoy doing it , and thats what matters to me .Nothing better than having a beer with a couple of mates drooling over job that was "impossible " at first sight. Just start with what you need and than extend . Every job that you don't outsource is money towards a new tool.
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Depends on far you want to go . When I started restoring my first Wasp in 1992 I thought buying a blasting cabinet was all I needed . Then I got sick of waiting getting wheels spoked , I built a machine to build wheels and drill rims ( sold 4 more to wheel builders in different states ) . Then came the hydro blaster and I thought that was it . Not for long . I got sick of waiting to have anodizing done , so I thought stuff it and got myself a anodizing , a zinc , nickel and chroming facility . That means I had to get a new shed built to house it all . Just finished that today . As you see it never ends . What is essential and what is not . How long is a piece of string , when do we have enough bikes ? I enjoy doing it , and thats what matters to me .Nothing better than having a beer with a couple of mates drooling over job that was "impossible " at first sight. Just start with what you need and than extend . Every job that you don't outsource is money towards a new tool.
True. Considering how much money I have spend on Tig welding aluminium and magnesium parts I could have about half of a decent tig welder and could learn how to do these repairs myself and even made little money doing bits for others maybe.
Full size lathe is great and have a decent milling machine would be nice too.
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I sympathise with you Walter. I would rather buy or make a tool to do a job than pay a man to do it for me .
Efficiency wise, it probably isn't, but on a sunday night at 6pm when you need to do something specific, having the ability and equipment is brilliant.
Almost justifies the cost.
Almost.
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Patience is the first tool ya need. Every other tool will come to you as you find the need and the spondoolies
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A second hand oven made my life easier for curing the painted parts
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A metal lathe plus a 20 ton press
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Got it, thanks guys. Patience, play it as it comes.
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Really, it depends on how many restos you think you'll do, and whether they going to be race bikes, nice tidy shed queens or 100% restos.
I mean, if you're just doing one or two bikes, then its probably not worth investing in tools to restore them - but the more bikes you do, them more it makes sense to buy the tools...
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Hydroblaster, at 15k, is the new black for the serious restorer. Being willing and able to restore plastic and to be on good terms wth a commercial electroplater are a couple of other neccesities.
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Tools for starting out, only going to do one bike, maybe give this VMX caper a go:
1. Really basic hand toolset, one of those Supercheap toolboxes with heaps of shiny things
2. Flywheel puller to suit your bike
3. Tension wrench (this is one tool you should not be a cheapskate on)
4. Couple of tire irons
5. Spoke spanner
6. Old metal valve cap that has the jigger on the end to screw out Schrader valves
7. Couple of hammers and some brass drifts
8. Wire brushes
9. Hand tire pump
10. Soldering iron to put ends on cables and do old school wiring (and do not forget to learn about the different types of solder)
11. Cheapo heat gun, for making plastic repairs and shrinking that cable tubee stuff (and repairing plastic is something you will never be good at)
12. Stanley knife blades for scraping back heat damaged plastic
13. Stanley knife (for the blades)
14. Bench vice (and it’s good to have a bench to put the vice on and generally work on)
15. Lump of old steel or even a piece of railway line if you can get it to hammer things on, you can hammer things on the vice but then the vice looks well you know hammered
16. Electric drill and assortment of drill bits and cheap grinding stones and wire brushes, and if you haven’t got the bench vice you will learn why you should have one the first time you try and wire buff up a bolt holding it in one hand and the electric drill and wire brush in the other
17. Centre punch so your drilling does not go walkabout
18. Reasonable quality calipers, the digital kind that can read in inches or metric, up to 8 inch 200 mm are good
19. Some disposable breathing masks so that when you are doing a rattle can respray the only thing that does not get painted is your lungs
20. Steel ruler, one that is a metre long, handy for working out what shocks you have and to use as a straight edge to see if things are lined up or bent or buggered (steel tape measure is okay but no good as a straight edge)
21. Few different files, they have good names like Bastard and Rats Tail (do not mention these names to wife, she already thinks poorly of your friends)
22. File brush, a little flat brush thing for cleaning the files when they get clogged up with stuff
23. A steel pointer thing straight on one end hooked on the other for scratching/marking out work and picking out the aluminium from your files that the little flat brush won’t move
24. A magnet on a stick for picking up things that have fallen in where they shouldn’t be, won’t work on aluminium or stainless but if you didn’t know that already then I suggest lawn bowls is the right sporting challenge for you
25. Bottom third of a 20 L tin drum (did I mention tin snips?) and a stiff brush and some petrol to clean parts, there are more environmentally friendly and safer alternatives to petrol but hey it works and is traditional
26. A few different containers to put the bits in, and plastic bags and zip ties and labels if you are one of those blokes that eats hamburgers with a knife and fork (does lawns bowls interest you?)
27. Notepad to write down your list of things to buy and things to do and work out how much you think it’s going to cost you (and no smart comments here we don’t want to scare anyone off, because of course they may end up buying stuff off you)
28. Computer/Internet so you can look up stuff you don’t know and ask questions on this forum and find tradespeople to do the jobs you can’t do and buy parts from all over the world and check on the shipping updates every hour or so and your ebay bids every few minutes (best if the computer is in the shed, do not want to disturb the wife every few minutes)
29. And of course when the master of the house is not home her kitchen oven for heating parts so bearings come out and go back in and for curing paint
And then when you have struggled your way through the first resto’ and there is another bike you just have to have you may need:
30. A cheap compressor with an air nozzle so you can blow stuff around, and tire pumping up fitting so you don’t have to work the hand pump anymore (save the back for shakedown trials on the “new” bike)
31. A pedestal drill and some more drill bits and maybe even a couple of mill bits, and a drill vice and some clamps to stop stuff running away when you are making holes
32. Bench grinder with a general-purpose wheel on one end and a wire brush on the other end (and this is one place you don’t take chances – make sure you wear safety goggles (put them on the list) cause those little bits of wire brush that fly off in all directions are lethal to eyeballs. And practice heaps on sharpening drill bits because you will blunt heaps of the suckers until you learn about stainless and work hardening
33. More hand tools and pullers from Supercheap, most of which you will never use
34. Setup/jig to spin wheels so you can build your own wheels and sort out crappy spokes and try for hours to remove rim wobbles
35. Electrical multimeter so you can step-by-step follow the instructions you have read about on the Internet on how to test your 45-year-old Spanish ignition system that would not twitch a frog’s leg but bugger’s yours
And then when you’ve got half a dozen bikes and two or three resto’s going at once:
36. Welding kit, and to do it properly go down to Bunnings and get the oxyacetylene kit and learn how to gas weld and how to heat parts up without melting them, Comet 3 or equivalent Chinese rubbish gas set complete with gas axe. And get an assortment of welding rods, leather gloves are good and if you don’t have them you will soon burn your fingers picking up hot bits, on second thoughts don’t bother with the gloves ‘cause by now your fingers will be plenty burned anyways
37. Tig welder with a Bunnings gas bottle and learn how to tig weld aluminium and chrome molly and maybe even magnesium castings, make sure you get the right rods and practice heaps on old broken bits or your good stuff will become old broken bits
38. You might go an arc welder but bit heavy duty for old MX bikes
39. Tap and die set
40. Adjustable reamer set
41. Lathe and all of the bits that go with it, and learn how to use it by trial and error in which case make sure you don’t put your fingers in and don’t wear loose clothing and keep the rock star hair back in a ponytail or error will be your teacher. And if you want to learn how to do good stuff on the lathe without losing any body parts first then get a tradesmen to give you a few lessons or go to that local Tafe College
42. Milling machine (mill drill will probably suffice) with all the assortment cutting tools so you can make parts that you can’t find on the Internet, and a Tafe College course to learn how to be a handyman fitter and turner (first oxymoron)
43. Plating kit, so you can cad and nickel plate to make old stuff that is worn out and sloppy at least look new
44. Glass bead blasting cabinet. You may need to upgrade the cheap compressor
45. Secondhand electric oven so you don’t have to use the one that belongs to the master of the house – if by this stage she is still around
46. Soda blasting outfit
47. Probably a bigger shed or at least close the shed up so that cars can’t get in so you can just expand the motorcycle restoration business to take up all the space
48. Shed attic is good so you can put all the resto jobs that you just can’t get around to this year up top out of sight, not essential if the wife is no longer around
49. Couple of workshop chairs for the mates to sit on (you can get kitchen chairs and relocate them if the wife is no longer around) and beer ‘fridge (ditto re-purposing house ‘fridge if wife gone)
And lots of other stuff that other blokes have which puts it to the top of your must have list
And now to get off topic.
Those of you who think logically and are good “home managers” might want to put all of your tools and full replacement values onto your insurance policy, and whilst that might be the logical and sensible thing to do there is a school of thought that says if you do that then it will cost you dearly in the divorce (and if you’ve got all the above stuff it’s just a matter of when not if) because the wife will then have a written admission, legal documentary evidence of how much all that shit in the shed is worth and that’s probably about all you’ll end up getting because you will be in fourth place behind the wife and the two lawyers. Nutshell version, bin receipts, have a secret Ebay account, have a secret credit card for Paypal (hell why not - she’s got two secret cards) and never admit to anything
And since we are all friends here it’s probably okay to call out a few of you who don’t think things through properly particularly when you’re thinking about starting up a new life-changing hobby such as buying an old MX bike, so, some cold hard facts that roll the insurance, divorce and marriage advice up into the one neat package. For many years now the divorce rate has been about 45% generally yet the chances of getting burglarised or your place getting burnt down are only 1% or 2%, and if you can’t see how that is going to end up then I suggest you stay away from the MX bikes and perhaps give up the Pokies/TAB and instead say to the wife “I’ve been thinking – we should start doing more stuff together, there’s dancing lessons at the Hall every Wednesday night and I’d really like to go and learn dancing, would you come along, it would be really great to spend some socialising time with you and be together and it would help me get fit” (with my hand on my heart I tell you I’m now lookin’ for one of those little Pokémon things that is a bloke sticking his fingers down his throat to chuck but can’t find one so you’ll have to imagine it)
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Tools for starting out, only going to do one bike, maybe give this VMX caper a go:
1. Really basic hand toolset, one of those Supercheap toolboxes with heaps of shiny things
2. Flywheel puller to suit your bike
3. Tension wrench (this is one tool you should not be a cheapskate on)
4. Couple of tire irons
5. Spoke spanner
6. Old metal valve cap that has the jigger on the end to screw out Schrader valves
7. Couple of hammers and some brass drifts
8. Wire brushes
9. Hand tire pump
10. Soldering iron to put ends on cables and do old school wiring (and do not forget to learn about the different types of solder)
11. Cheapo heat gun, for making plastic repairs and shrinking that cable tubee stuff (and repairing plastic is something you will never be good at)
12. Stanley knife blades for scraping back heat damaged plastic
13. Stanley knife (for the blades)
14. Bench vice (and it’s good to have a bench to put the vice on and generally work on)
15. Lump of old steel or even a piece of railway line if you can get it to hammer things on, you can hammer things on the vice but then the vice looks well you know hammered
16. Electric drill and assortment of drill bits and cheap grinding stones and wire brushes, and if you haven’t got the bench vice you will learn why you should have one the first time you try and wire buff up a bolt holding it in one hand and the electric drill and wire brush in the other
17. Centre punch so your drilling does not go walkabout
18. Reasonable quality calipers, the digital kind that can read in inches or metric, up to 8 inch 200 mm are good
19. Some disposable breathing masks so that when you are doing a rattle can respray the only thing that does not get painted is your lungs
20. Steel ruler, one that is a metre long, handy for working out what shocks you have and to use as a straight edge to see if things are lined up or bent or buggered (steel tape measure is okay but no good as a straight edge)
21. Few different files, they have good names like Bastard and Rats Tail (do not mention these names to wife, she already thinks poorly of your friends)
22. File brush, a little flat brush thing for cleaning the files when they get clogged up with stuff
23. A steel pointer thing straight on one end hooked on the other for scratching/marking out work and picking out the aluminium from your files that the little flat brush won’t move
24. A magnet on a stick for picking up things that have fallen in where they shouldn’t be, won’t work on aluminium or stainless but if you didn’t know that already then I suggest lawn bowls is the right sporting challenge for you
25. Bottom third of a 20 L tin drum (did I mention tin snips?) and a stiff brush and some petrol to clean parts, there are more environmentally friendly and safer alternatives to petrol but hey it works and is traditional
26. A few different containers to put the bits in, and plastic bags and zip ties and labels if you are one of those blokes that eats hamburgers with a knife and fork (does lawns bowls interest you?)
27. Notepad to write down your list of things to buy and things to do and work out how much you think it’s going to cost you (and no smart comments here we don’t want to scare anyone off, because of course they may end up buying stuff off you)
28. Computer/Internet so you can look up stuff you don’t know and ask questions on this forum and find tradespeople to do the jobs you can’t do and buy parts from all over the world and check on the shipping updates every hour or so and your ebay bids every few minutes (best if the computer is in the shed, do not want to disturb the wife every few minutes)
29. And of course when the master of the house is not home her kitchen oven for heating parts so bearings come out and go back in and for curing paint
And then when you have struggled your way through the first resto’ and there is another bike you just have to have you may need:
30. A cheap compressor with an air nozzle so you can blow stuff around, and tire pumping up fitting so you don’t have to work the hand pump anymore (save the back for shakedown trials on the “new” bike)
31. A pedestal drill and some more drill bits and maybe even a couple of mill bits, and a drill vice and some clamps to stop stuff running away when you are making holes
32. Bench grinder with a general-purpose wheel on one end and a wire brush on the other end (and this is one place you don’t take chances – make sure you wear safety goggles (put them on the list) cause those little bits of wire brush that fly off in all directions are lethal to eyeballs. And practice heaps on sharpening drill bits because you will blunt heaps of the suckers until you learn about stainless and work hardening
33. More hand tools and pullers from Supercheap, most of which you will never use
34. Setup/jig to spin wheels so you can build your own wheels and sort out crappy spokes and try for hours to remove rim wobbles
35. Electrical multimeter so you can step-by-step follow the instructions you have read about on the Internet on how to test your 45-year-old Spanish ignition system that would not twitch a frog’s leg but bugger’s yours
And then when you’ve got half a dozen bikes and two or three resto’s going at once:
36. Welding kit, and to do it properly go down to Bunnings and get the oxyacetylene kit and learn how to gas weld and how to heat parts up without melting them, Comet 3 or equivalent Chinese rubbish gas set complete with gas axe. And get an assortment of welding rods, leather gloves are good and if you don’t have them you will soon burn your fingers picking up hot bits, on second thoughts don’t bother with the gloves ‘cause by now your fingers will be plenty burned anyways
37. Tig welder with a Bunnings gas bottle and learn how to tig weld aluminium and chrome molly and maybe even magnesium castings, make sure you get the right rods and practice heaps on old broken bits or your good stuff will become old broken bits
38. You might go an arc welder but bit heavy duty for old MX bikes
39. Tap and die set
40. Adjustable reamer set
41. Lathe and all of the bits that go with it, and learn how to use it by trial and error in which case make sure you don’t put your fingers in and don’t wear loose clothing and keep the rock star hair back in a ponytail or error will be your teacher. And if you want to learn how to do good stuff on the lathe without losing any body parts first then get a tradesmen to give you a few lessons or go to that local Tafe College
42. Milling machine (mill drill will probably suffice) with all the assortment cutting tools so you can make parts that you can’t find on the Internet, and a Tafe College course to learn how to be a handyman fitter and turner (first oxymoron)
43. Plating kit, so you can cad and nickel plate to make old stuff that is worn out and sloppy at least look new
44. Glass bead blasting cabinet. You may need to upgrade the cheap compressor
45. Secondhand electric oven so you don’t have to use the one that belongs to the master of the house – if by this stage she is still around
46. Soda blasting outfit
47. Probably a bigger shed or at least close the shed up so that cars can’t get in so you can just expand the motorcycle restoration business to take up all the space
48. Shed attic is good so you can put all the resto jobs that you just can’t get around to this year up top out of sight, not essential if the wife is no longer around
49. Couple of workshop chairs for the mates to sit on (you can get kitchen chairs and relocate them if the wife is no longer around) and beer ‘fridge (ditto re-purposing house ‘fridge if wife gone)
And lots of other stuff that other blokes have which puts it to the top of your must have list
And now to get off topic.
Those of you who think logically and are good “home managers” might want to put all of your tools and full replacement values onto your insurance policy, and whilst that might be the logical and sensible thing to do there is a school of thought that says if you do that then it will cost you dearly in the divorce (and if you’ve got all the above stuff it’s just a matter of when not if) because the wife will then have a written admission, legal documentary evidence of how much all that shit in the shed is worth and that’s probably about all you’ll end up getting because you will be in fourth place behind the wife and the two lawyers. Nutshell version, bin receipts, have a secret Ebay account, have a secret credit card for Paypal (hell why not - she’s got two secret cards) and never admit to anything
And since we are all friends here it’s probably okay to call out a few of you who don’t think things through properly particularly when you’re thinking about starting up a new life-changing hobby such as buying an old MX bike, so, some cold hard facts that roll the insurance, divorce and marriage advice up into the one neat package. For many years now the divorce rate has been about 45% generally yet the chances of getting burglarised or your place getting burnt down are only 1% or 2%, and if you can’t see how that is going to end up then I suggest you stay away from the MX bikes and perhaps give up the Pokies/TAB and instead say to the wife “I’ve been thinking – we should start doing more stuff together, there’s dancing lessons at the Hall every Wednesday night and I’d really like to go and learn dancing, would you come along, it would be really great to spend some socialising time with you and be together and it would help me get fit” (with my hand on my heart I tell you I’m now lookin’ for one of those little Pokémon things that is a bloke sticking his fingers down his throat to chuck but can’t find one so you’ll have to imagine it)
Good effort Gippslander! That's impressive.
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Good effort Gippslander! That's impressive.
Agreed, what an awesome post...
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You forgot skill set of a fitter turner boilermaker spray painter
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So glad I put this one out there cheers !
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"Time serts" (and "Thick serts ") are something I've discovered.
An expensive but sometimes useful alternative to helicoils.
A helicoil removal tool has proved useful. Especially if somebody has already "restored" the bike.
As mentioned. An Ipad with Ozvmx as the home page is indispensable.
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$50 doesnt buy much these days, but have a mate with particular skills and a love of BEER and slab of the breweries finest will get that job done....
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maybe we should have a post about "sh*t that has gone wrong" in that shed with all those tools and machines...
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DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.
WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, ‘Oh sh–!’
SKILL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.
PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.
BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.
HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle… It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.
OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race.
TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.
HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.
BAND SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.
TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.
PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.
STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.
PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.
HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.
HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.
UTILITY KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use.
SON-OF-A-B!TCH TOOL: (A personal favorite!!) Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling ‘Son of a B!TCH!’ at the top of your lungs.. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.
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He he he ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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a ripper and oh so true...
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Classic! ;D ;D ;D
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A Shed .. aka workshop/piss up ,bullshit and swearing domicile ........ ;)
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Not essential but would be nice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOTunqOXu30
Zane
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waiting for desktop version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3CkzQQFZXs
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you forgot a couple Pete:
E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt
holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.
ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets
in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great
for drilling mounting holes in fenders just above the brake line
that goes to the rear wheel.
TIMING LIGHT: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease
buildup.
TROUBLE LIGHT: The mechanic’s own tanning booth. Sometimes
called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, “the
sunshine vitamin,” which is not otherwise found under motorcycles
at night. Health benefits aside, it’s main purpose is to consume
40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer
shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the
Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is
somewhat misleading.
AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a
coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into
compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact
wrench that grips rusty bolts last tightened 40 years ago by
someone in Sindelfingen, and rounds them off.
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Haha, good ones Paul.
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A wheel spanner and a couple of tomahawks. Watch the clip below
https://streamable.com/20pa
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A 12 ton press, or access to one.
After failing with two smaller presses I put my lower triple clamp and steering stem in the big girl and crushed the alloy "spacer"/support I'd made.
I then positioned it straight on the steel plates, applied pressure till I was a bit scared, hit it with the heat gun for a while and - success. It moved for the first time in 35 years (I assume).
Soon I'll have tapered bearings top and bottom 8)
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A wheel spanner and a couple of tomahawks. Watch the clip below
https://streamable.com/20pa
Good ol' ussie ingenuity hey ;D ;D ;D
lucky der brudders had a gubba to organise them ;D ;D ::) ;D