Tim's blog

Steve’s Vincent was ten horses up on last year’s figure when he ran it on the Silverback dyno shortly before leaving for this year’s Bonneville event. Much of that power came about because of a major change in cam duration. Given the fact that this is a Vincent, Steve can’t just order a new camshaft from Crane or Andrews. Essentially he had to make his own camshafts, with individual cam lobes ordered from friends at Zipper’s performance. Now most people, even very talented people, would be intimidated by the idea of creating their own camshaft. First, you have to get the lobes indexed correctly so the timing is right, second you have to weld the lobes to the shaft without any warpage. And of course the lobes meant for Harleys come with pretty steep ramps, which is not a problem for the Harleys with their roller lifters. Before Steve could even use the cam profiles from Zipper’s he had to first locate a roller-follower set up designed for Vincents, from a company in Australia.

All of which goes to show just how tough it is to build a competitive race bike based on designs that are over 60 years old. Like any good racer, Steve is never satisfied. When I asked him what’s next, he said, “more RPM. We’re running to 8,000 now, next year I want to turn 9,000.” How do you make an old V-Twin turn 9,000 RPM? With a shorter stroke and bigger bore.

Stay tuned.

Look closely and you can see that this is a one-off, hand built camshaft. Underneath is the drawing for the roller cam follower.

A man in his element, Steve Hamel, surrounded by mills and lathes and exotic parts for old motorcycles.

As I’ve mentioned before, the Panhead book, written by Rick Schunk, walks the reader through all parts of a restoration, from the wiring to repair of the Pan-heads. How to Airbrush Pin-Ups, available from either Wolfgang or ArtKulture, provides seven start-to-finish pin-up painting sequences as a means or explaining exactly what it takes to create a beautiful, sexy pin-up. Each photo sequence is done with a professional airbrush artist, and each one has something unique to say about creating the image, mixing paint, and the best use of color.

Panheads might be more popular now than they were when new. Restore yours with help from our newest restoration book. With airbrushing sequences from people like Edward Reed, Steve Driscoll and Susan Heidi, the How To Airbrush Pin-Ups book brings a wealth of information and experience to each reader.

Good Sales in a Poor Economy

I recently took a look at book sales through August, and the results were somewhat surprising. Two of our best, most consistent sellers, are books that are anything but brand new. Advance Tattoo Art from 2006, a book that’s primarily tattooing sequences, continues to sell well and create good royalty payments for the author, Doug Mitchel.

Though published in 2006, Advance Tattoo Art is still selling very well through the big book chains.

In a completely different category, How to Build a Cheap Chopper from 2004 just kind of plugs along like a good annuity. The income is great of course, but it’s equally great to know that people are still interested in building bikes at home – a trend that many of us thought died when the economy went in the tank.

It’s nice to know that people are still building Bobbers and Choppers at home with help from this early Wolfgang book.

As I explained in an earlier blog, it’s hard to get Rob to my garage, so I’ve been making bucks and bringing those to Rob, who then makes the sheet metal to fit the buck. In this case I also made a paper template that I stretched over the buck. It’s another representation of the sheet metal, and a way to tell where the heavy duty stretching and shaping will be.

Rob used the paper template to mark the sheet metal and then cut it out.

When we started the project, Rob explained that there are 2 ways to do this: create the flanges at the edges first and then create the dome in the center, or create the dome and then the flanges. Rob chose option number one, the nearby photos show how he started with a flat piece of 18 gauge steel and ended with a complex piece of sheet metal - what’s essentially a partial dome with two reverse flanges.

Rob starts the shaping with nothing more complex than two strong arms and the edge of the table.

This is the first check of our progress.

The crown that runs through the center of the piece is done with the English wheel.

The crown is subtle, but important, and easier to see with a straight edge.

The flanging comes last, most of it is done with the plastic hammer and a home-made T-dolly.

The buck is obviously too flimsy to shape anything over and is only used to check the shape, which is pretty close at this point.

The nearly finished piece set in place – better than a painting by Picasso any day.