The suspension spider pattern:
The clip-on mount:
The patterns are made from Renshape, a tooling board material that is easy to machine with a good surface finish. The pattern material is protected from the abrasive casting sand by the thin plastic film draped over it. I like the fact that the film has dual purposes: to improve the surface finish of the cast part and to increase the lifespan of the tooling used to make that part.
After a bit of necessary contract work to pay the bills I'm now in the final stages of mounting and aligning the trunnion table. A post will follow shortly.
Chris
Cool Stuff! Sorry if this is a dumb question. You do the aluminum casting and then mill the surface smooth? Why do this instead of cutting the shape from a block? Is it expense? What is the advantage of this process?
ReplyDeleteAlso to bad you are not trying to run the bike in Moto2 and use the spec engine. I think the Moto2 has been a exciting class because the teams are same in hp. The only difference is chassey and rider. Every is fighting for first instead of 2 guys in Moto GP.
The advantage comes when you want more then one piece. Billet is nice for one part but multiples tend to get expensive. Once the pattern is done the parts are cheap and finish machining is minimal.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Moto2 goes, this is GP racing, not a spec series. To prohibit prototypes from racing in a GP class is like preventing attractive people from entering a beauty contest. Still, we tried to get a grid position but were turned down so had no other options and building a bike around a CBR600 engine is just boring.
Chris