sketch practise

sketch practise

Having problems with ellipses.

sketch practise

For some reason, I've always found it easier to sketch with a pen than with a pencil. The smooth flowing ink makes it easier to slide it across the paper. I never really figured out how to draw with a pencil, could never control that graphite slide.

It's also for this reason that I'm a big fan of Marko Djurdjevic, the stuff he can do with a single pencil is amazing.

sketch practise

Taking shape.

Progress has been much slower than I expected. Had thought that I would be scraping clay by now. Not sure if the workshop is open tomorrow, think I'll be spending at least another 2 days inhaling more foam dust before the first layer of clay goes on.

Now that I think about it, maybe it wasn't necessary to have scrapped off all the paint from the wheels or frame, just the top layer of dirt and oil would've sufficed. This is just a test mule, afterall. Besides all the extra work, a lot of time was also wasted just sitting around planning the next move. Need to work out as much of the details as possible next time instead of thinking about it when it arrives.

Blue snot.

Learned something new today - not wise to drill where there has been a weld. It is tough and will damage the bit. Not sure about the weld's integrity though.

Spend most of the afternoon building a support stand for the frame but as funds are limited, I had to use whatever discarded material I could find, did manage to find 2 nice large pieces of wood, but I planned wrongly and cut against the grain. I used a finger joint and the pressures caused 1 of the supports to snap. Ended up spending the whole afternoon on something that shouldn't have takened more than an hour.

Finally got around to the engine today. I used a good mask and still the dust managed to get into my system. I think anyone who has been through design school will eventually develope some kind of mutated tuberculosis.

Measure twice, weld once!

Welded the engine mounts at the wrong angle, putting it too close to the front wheel and too far from the 'engine'. I don't have the time to cut, grind and weld all over again so this is just a lesson I'll have to remember. Measure twice, weld once!

Below is what it sort of looks like with the engine model inside.

Bought this from a bazaar during the Tokyo Motorcycle Show back in March for 100yen, surprisingly the speedo still works! Not sure about the tacho or temp. gauge, don't have anything to test them on and don't even know what bike this is from. Looks like a Honda though. Was planning to pull it apart to study the insides and see whether it was possible to customise it. I wasn't sure how to remove the needle and ended up breaking it.

MotoMini frame

Engine mounts finally welded on. They're not perfectly aligned but nothing a hammer can't fix. I also removed the meter stay and chopped off the rear half of the subframe.

I'm missing a few screws but a short trip to the home center should fix that.

Project MotoMini

Model for a minibike concept that's been brewing in my mind for quite some time. Will be dedicating the remaining 2 weeks of my summer holiday to this project. This will be my first 1:1 scale model and I am just using this as a guage as to how fast I can work and also as a practise before my next 2 planned projects.

The 'engine' will be a blue foam mould, custom mounts will have to be fabricated and welded onto the frame as the original ones have been grinded off. Footpegs and triple clamps will probably be carved from chemical wood. Bodywork will be clay. If I have any available funds I will fabricate the bodywork from fibreglass.

Today's main task was to clean the parts of dirt and oil to prep it for clay modelling. Spent most of the day on the front wheel. Hope I can finish the rest of the parts tomorrow.