Making brackets and other gizmos...

[Justin B.]

I had put a set of Krauser K2 bags on my '81 R100 last fall and, as usual with Krauser's universal type mounts, the upper mounting bracket left much to be desired in the strength and rigidity department.    I decided to make some new upper mounting brackets out of 1" x 1/8" flat stock but the bends I was able to make with my vise, hammer, and railroad iron were not very pretty.  :-/  I finished out the year with the "floppy" Krauser bracket.

Harbor Freight to the rescue!  They had their bench mount "Compact Metal Bender" on sale a while back so I picked one up.  I bolted it to a workbench, and in no time had fabricated the top mounts with nice neat bends and now my bags don't flop around anymore!    I can begin to see a lot of potential uses for this thing...

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

Hmmm...

I have my 1/4 fairing I battled for a while this year attempting to make brackets.

Thing is, I mounted this same model fairing to my bike back when the bike was just a couple of years old, so I know it can be done.  (The original was not with the bike when it was recovered from an attempted theft.)  But that was so long ago, I have naturally forgotten how I did it.  Two of the brackets will mount easily (headlight bolts) but the other two will take a convoluted path to reach the top triple clamp bolts where I plan to mount them.  Lots o' weird bends...

But I feel it is worth it:

[NC Steve]

Rob, I like that fairing! Is it a Givi, or Rifle, maybe?

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

Tracy.  NLA

[Justin B.]

That is a rather neato looking fairing.  Rob, maybe you should make a plaster cast of it and turn out a few?

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

That is a rather neato looking fairing.  Rob, maybe you should make a plaster cast of it and turn out a few?

Maybe I should ship it to you, Justin.  All I would do is make a big mess and end up crying a lot.

[Justin B.]

I doubt you'd make any bigger mess than I would!

[Jon_P]

i have one of those! they are nice. i also have a planetary ring bender. it can bend round or flat stock into curves and such. that is nice some times went you want a sweeping bend compared to a firm angle bend. i have a bunch of stuff from there.

[Justin B.]

Yeah, this thing came with a box of rollers/dies in various diameters for making "purty" lookin' stuff out of steel!    Also included a book with a bunch of wrought iron designs/sketches with hints on what die to use where and so forth.  I just wanted it to make brackets and stuff like that.  

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

It looks nice, but for $100, I will have to wait for a sale AND a 15% coupon...





http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=44094

[Justin B.]

Yeah, that's the one!  [smiley=thumbsup.gif] I think the regular price at my local store is $89.95 and they regularly put it on sale for $49.95. [smiley=deal2.gif] I bought one the last time they had it on sale.   They also have a floor-mount model that;s about $40 more...