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willofthewisp — Air cleaner

Published: 2010-02-15 04:13:45 +0000 UTC; Views: 609; Favourites: 6; Downloads: 17
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Description Last summer I bought a motorbike from a guy who had crashed it, and have been fixing it up. The pavement scraped up the pipes, and the heat shields turn signals, battery case, and part of the air cleaner cover were gone. I fixed the brakes, and had new tires, primary chain, and final drive belt put on, along with a lot of other little thing. To save some money, and for the cool factor, I decided to make some of my own parts from copper. The first thing was to deal with the problem of setting my pants on fire with the bare, scraped to hell exhaust pipes. I used my girlfriend's angle grinder to remove the gouges, and painted the pipes with stove blacking, and then hammered out and riveted together a set of copper heat shields. When I first put them on and went out on the road I was a bit distracted by the beautifully changing heat colors on the copper. The next step was to make a battery case. I made the windows on it in the shape of the sky in a little landscape scene in the Cascades. The next thing was to make a cover plate for the air cleaner. I cut out the sheet metal and fixed it to pitch, and proceeded to chase the image with broad smooth punches. The design if of the leaves and flower stalk of wapato, a wetland plant that once was a common food.
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Comments: 6

Geffenleffens [2013-04-09 20:14:31 +0000 UTC]

Very cool my man, copper and lead... two best metals to work with on a bike or a car.

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Darrian-Ashoka [2010-03-29 07:56:40 +0000 UTC]

Very nicely done. Classy. I hope you are able to sell this sort of custom work to other bike enthusiasts. Your right about the amazing colors that come from heated copper. Too bad it will not stay that way without some clear coat. I made a bird house roof cover for a client. She came over to my shop and I had her play with my torch to bring out those sort of colors and then coated with with a varnish to help keep that look. These photos hardly do it justice, but here's a couple links: [link] [link]

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willofthewisp In reply to Darrian-Ashoka [2010-04-04 07:06:56 +0000 UTC]

The heat colors are very cool, I once did a big fold formed vessel that sort of looked like a Georgia O'Keefe flower in copper. I did the heat color thing, and the used museum wax. The colors lasted a couple years, but it is in the nature of the metal to keep changing. My original plan for the motorbike was to finish the copper with liver of sulfur and steel wool, but there will be time for that later, and right now I am enjoying watching the metal age as I go down the road.

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artistladysmith [2010-02-15 15:08:11 +0000 UTC]

beautiful as usual

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willofthewisp In reply to artistladysmith [2010-02-15 21:37:56 +0000 UTC]

Thanks.

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OenghusLok47 [2010-02-15 14:14:53 +0000 UTC]

100% Cool.

Very inspirational.

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