Diversion into detailing

I know, I know..... I'm supposed to be mapping the frame geometry and working on the solid model. Unfortunately, other things (that pay the bills) have been dominating my time latley.


I did have a little time to sneak out to the garage and do some detailing on the frame, and experimenting with polishing various surfaces. I'm toying with the idea of turning this bike into a "street figher", because I can't bear covering up the frame.

The frame is an intricate combination of sand castings, die castings and extruded sections. Most of the less visible castings were not cleaned up very well, with rough parting lines, and even sprues still attached.



The steering head is a large sand casting and really needs some help. The sprue remnants were driving me crazy (have you picked up on the anal retentive tendancies), so I ground them off. I then used progressively finer sandpapers on the surrounding cast surface, and finished up with some 000 steel wool, and some Mother's aluminum polish.

The results aren't quite "mirror-finish", but pretty good for a rookie, IMHO. I may need to go one grade higher on the sandpaper and do "00" and then "0000" with the steel wool.

Hopefully, I will be able to get away for few hours sometime this week to get the dimensional layout done.