Blue Trellis

After many years of waiting, the frame has it's final colour and a nice shiny powdercoat finish.

There's not much to say, so hope you enjoy the close up pictures!

And of course the rear subframe has had the same treatment, although we went with black for this piece to add some contrast, though most of this is hidden.

We now have 9 days to get the entire bike rebuilt (and still make a few parts) in readiness for a two day trackday at Oulton Park where we get to test the swingarm for the very first time. Very exciting, but lots to do.

Frame Components Arriving

The first of our parts to build some more frames have arrived. Above we have the 1 1/4" tubing along with a whole load of lasercut parts. These arrived this morning and were only ordered on Tuesday. We wern't in a rush for them, just great service!

These are the components before bending that will make up three frames and subframes. There are also some additional parts we had made to try to speed up the assembly & welding process as seen below.

This setup was first seen on a set of Pierobon jigs, where they use lateral jigs to build both sides before final assembly onto the main jig. It looks far easier to hold all the tubing and weld the bosses in place, so following the success of our lasercut swingarm jig and a few hours in Solidworks to model up some jig parts up around our frame, we came up with this setup.

The 1 1/4" tubing drops on perfectly and there are also guides for the smaller diagonals (the red tubes are our old patterns and made to fit 1 3/8 tubing). We look forward to seeing how it goes. Now to await the arrival of the bosses and order some tubing.

2016 Plans

Since last time, we have finished welding and making all the parts for the prototype swingarm. The trickiest part of this was the final step, machining (more crucially, aligning of) the bores for the pivot bearings. This was done on the lathe, with the swingarm clamped to the cross slide and a boring head mounted in the chuck. Unfortunatly, we didnt take any photos of this step, but it was very pleasing to be able to press the bearings in place and for perfect alignment on the swingarm spindle.

There was one part that we re-made - the brake caliper hanger. We made an error on the hole pitch for the caliper, so while we were re-making the piece, we altered the rear wheel spacers, thinned the part out and reduced the weight by half. All part of development.

The end of the year saw a bit of a halt on things since we were insulating/painting the workshop and organising it whilst we went along. Now everything has its place so working should become more efficient.  

The prototype bike is now undergoing a full strip-down (with a few modifications to some mounts on the frame) in order to go off for powdercoating. What colour? We don't know yet, but it's going to be better then white!

So what does 2016 bring? We've got some big plans, starting with the first production run of frames. We have started making parts for the first three frames to be manufactured. These are going to be slightly different to the prototype frame as we look to improve it in many ways and we will post more about those specifics in future posts but most importantly it will be lighter. 

Therefore there are going to be two frames up for grabs (we are building one up into a much more race orientated bike ourselves (the engine is stripped on the workbench ready for a rebuild)). We are just finalising the price and marketing material, but if you are interested (we have had many requests so far asking when . . .) then please do drop us an email at info@moto-rdesign.com. 

SV650 - How To Build A Motorcycle Frame

Happy new year to all. The festivities are now over and its time to get back in the workshop, ready for the warmer weather and a lot more time on track this coming year.

Over the past few months we have been working on drawings for all of the components and we thought we would treat you with a couple of images to show the level of detail that we have gone to throughout the project. 

The two images show the CAD model of the frame, with a handful of dimensions that relate directly to the frame jig we have produced, along with a drawing showing the location of each tube that goes into a frame. The frame tubes all have there own separate drawing and along with all the bosses and brackets, there are over 70 components that go into producing each frame, along with a good few hours of TIG welding.

This year we would like to start to enjoy some of the work we have undertaken, by spending more time on track, but would also like to offer the parts that we have designed to others. We are finalising some costings into the manufacturing costs of the various components but in the meantime would welcome any emails or messages from riders wishing to express an interest.

Have a good year!