Frame Building

And so it all starts again . . . 

The new jigs are working a treat. We can't wait to see the difference in weight and looks of the frame when it's built with the new smaller diameter tubing.

There are three frames lined up for production. If you want one, drop us an email.

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.

SV650 - Swingarm Weld Time

This weekend we sat down with the TIG torch and got to work on welding the new swingarm and although not quite there with it (we've ran out of gas) a lot got done and we're now not far off.

From the previous post, we had the initial lower section tacked together, before test fitting it to the bike to make sure everything cleared. With this all good, we were ready to weld - but there was a change to make first.

The pivot tube made initially was 1 1/2" with a relatively thick wall. The counterbore for the bearing was machined from this, therefore creating the greater tube thickness in the middle of the tube. This created extra unnecessary weight so we changed the plan. Now we have gone with 1 5/8" x 16swg CDS tubing, but have machined bosses that are welded in either end to take the bearings. These are currently undersized, ready to be machined in line on a boring setup we are making on the lathe when the welding process has done with distorting my once straight tube.

With the lower half fully welded (and checked for distortion (the two legs pulled in 9mm!)) and re-positioned to where they should be, the top half of the swingarm could start to be tacked on. Again, it was very much a case of tacking a few bits on and checking on the bike. This was especially important to enure the shock, exhaust and chain cleared all the tubing.

You can see the large cut from the front tube that has been shaped around the shock. There is very little space between the shock and chainline.

Once popped out of the jig, access to the joints became easier to weld and it was all going so well until the Argon ran out. So this is the stage we are at, with a couple more cross braces to add and a few welds to finish off. Then we can look at machining the bores for the bearings and correcting the distortion that has occured on the top tubes where they meet the aluminium block at the the rear.

SV650 - August Update

We had another track day booked at RAF Benson in the middle of the month, so held off stripping the back end of the bike down until this had passed to get on with welding the new swingarm.

These are all of the steel components that will go into the welded part of the swingarm. In addition to the above, there are a number of machined aluminium parts to mount the rear wheel which can be seen below.

The first tacks on the lower half of the swingarm. We thought we'd take it steady and tack a little at a time, then check it on the bike, then tack a little bit more . . . 

 

Here's a shot of the lower half of the swingarm on the bike with some of the CNC machined components loosely bolted in place. It gives a great impression of how its going to end up looking!

SV650 - Swingarm Progress

The jig for the swingarm has started to receive the first set of tubes for swingarm number one. We have had to make a few adjustments to the jig to add some stiffness and some additional stops. Now we have it tacked together whilst we work on and check the prototype swingarm and then we can weld it fully.

There are four tubes in the swingarm design that feature bends, so we have re-familiarised ourselves with the tube bender (once we made a new, suitably fixed stand for it in the new workshop). We went in at the deep end straight away with this 80 degree bend (previously the max bend that we have done with this tubing/bender was 50 degree) and it came out perfectly, with very minimal tube distortion (I see CNC tube benders produce much worse).

A bit more cutting, bending and notching and a swingarm begins to form on the jig. I really enjoy how easy this process is when time has been spent perfecting a lasercut jig, as everything just fits as it should, unlike the jig process we used for the frame.

And we end up with this. After a few evenings, everything is notched and all the tubes are located in place. Now to order some more TIG rod and start to tack/check on bike.

On another note, its not all been hard work in the workshop here, we have been having a bit of fun! Here's a recent picture of our buddy Greg having a test session on the SV at a recent RAF Odiham ARD. 

He liked.

SV650 - Lasercutting, it makes my life easier.

With the entire design process for the swingarm done in CAD, it made sense for us to design the jig alongside it on the computer screen. 

I seem to remember very well spending weeks making the previous jig for the frame and didn't want to endure the same kind of timescale with the swingarm jig. So to avoid this, a very simple structure was designed which could be easily manufactured, consisting of lasercut steel plates, box section steel, stainless steel tie bars and aluminium bosses. 

The key to this simplicity is having the fully designed part and opting for lasercut plates. This means we could send them out, have them cut very accurately with no post processing required and when they return, simply fit them together. The steel box section acts as cross members which are welded in place to make the jig solid and space everything out. Then come the tie bars and aluminium boss, which locate the main fixing points on the swingarm.

Two weeks after sending drawings out, we received the lasercut parts.

Half an hour to cut some steel box section to length and then a few hours to make up some stainless tie bars and everything is mocked up loosely. 

That's as far as we got with it today, all that needs to be done now is to machine the aluminium bosses and weld the box section in place and the jig is good to go.

 Lasercutting, it makes my life easier!