Been kind of lax of late...

  Sorry for the long hiatus, due to some encouragement from my son Devon,  I guess that I need to start doing some more blogs about what I have been doing lately with wood and the such. watch out world, here I come.

Willamette Mission State Park

Civil War Reenactment

2012

Well, It finally came, and unfortunatly it went also. This years event was a great time with family and friends. It did rain a couple of days but we were able to come home with dry canvas.

The grand unvailing of the Velocipede was what I feel was a sucsess, I had a lot of interest in it and also had a great time riding or shall I say striding about with it.

In the pic above, the tintype photographer wanted to shoot me for his portfolio and for the effort he made a small one for me, thanks goes to Dana At Yaquina Photography.



High Desert Museum

The shop set up at the Miller ranch.

Well, it has been a long time since I have posted any thing on the blog so I thought that It was about

time, about a month ago I decided to start volenteering at the High Desert Museum in their living history

department. At the moment I will be portraying a traveling woodworker that is coming through Central

Oregon looking for a job and stopped in Bend and got a job at the Miller Ranch just 6 miles south of

Bend, so the story goes.

It was really fun, just like reenacting, a lot of interacting with the public and trying to keep my story straight. Jason, who portrays William, is one of the full time interprators and has been alot of help figuring out the flow of things at the ranch. He also has an interest in woodworking so I think that we will try to do some sort of project together, he mentioned something about how he would like to build some chairs, I think that that is do able.

Well until next time, dont let your tools get rusty... 

New thing in the making, But you will have to wait...

Sorry that there has been no activity on this blog, but after I went back to work I just have not been doing much in the way of projects, except one that I am not going to reveal until it is done and be on display at the next Civil War reenactment at Willamette Mission park next July, just to say it is an AWESOME project, so if you want to see it You may have to come and see us on the Forth Of July.

And it does have something to do with wood by the way, I bet you couldn't guess that one.

Spills, Spills, Spills, Spills,

This is another resurrected project from a year ago or so.

Last year at Willamette mission Civil war reenactment, one of our friends in the traveling town folk let me borrow a tool that her brother had given her for her birthday. She brought it over to me and I knew exactly what it was, and she graciously let me play with it (thank you Heather) all weekend. I had so much fun with making spills with it I just could not stand it, I had to make one for myself.

A spill is a spiral of wood, generally pine, that is made into a long cone for which it is used to take fire from the fireplace and transfer the flame to a candle or light a pipe. This was before the mass production of matches. People would have to go to

the local cabinetmaker and he would make them out of scraps, because nothing went to waste.

Being the way I am, I was not going to buy one, so I set out to find, or try to find plans

so I could make one in the more traditional manner. Well after many attempts, I finally shelved the project for another time, sometimes a little time does wonders for the mind.

So last week with wood in hand, I trekked on down to the shop and started on the mock-up, just to see if I could make it right, well to make a long story short IT WORKED!!!

Next thing was to make the real deal, and came up with a very good working spill plane. Below are the pics of the not so finished plane, I want to put more period correct screws and finish on it.

Front view of the spill plane.

Left end

This is the fun part when the spill is coming off the plane knife.

Just a few minutes of work and I have a full cup, I think that I will make a sign to sell them at reenactments, 12 for a nickle, at least they are period correct. It is real addicting pushing a piece of wood

over a piece of metal and cumming up with a useful product that we can use in reinacting.

Cool Keys

One of my more latest projects was to make a custom key for my

motorcycle. I made one about 2 years ago and have used it ever since.

Then a couple of months ago I decided to make some more, just so I could take

them to the Nor-Cal tech days that I went to back in June, I guess that I wanted to

see if there was any marketing in them, I had a few bites and donated a couple to the

raffle that they had.

They are made out of an exotic wood called Coco Bolo and have a brass tube

where the fob goes through the wood.

I love to turn something mundane as a key into a piece of art!

Back to work.

Well, yesterday I got the call back to work, I will have to wait a week until the 8th of August but hey, I don't care at least I am going back.

Road ID

The other day I was watching the Tour De France and they had a commercial on

this company that sells a bracelet for identification, I was intrigued so I went to there

web site. They market the bracelet for runners and cyclists but I thought that It would be

a perfect fit for a Motorcycle rider.

It is just like the ordinary silicone bracelets that every one is wearing but incorporates

a stainless steel tag that you can put just about any information on that you want,

I put on my name, birthday, wife's phone, sons phone, med history, and just

a little saying that I use occasionally. It also comes in a cool tin.

This way if I am ever injured anywhere, the paramedics can identify me and let the

important people know what is happening, a great idea, with that I would have

thought of it.

White face instrument panel

Today I am going to attempt to post a mod that I did to my KLR. I have found that I really like the white face a whole lot better that the old black face with red numbers, as we all get older our eye sight gets worse and worse.....

I will not digress any longer, and get right to the point of this blog.

This Mod is for the First Generation Kawasaki KLR 650.

First of all, just TAKE YOUR TIME on this one, when you remove your needle make sure that everything is aligned and flat, you do not want to break the needle. Below is a pic of the tool that I use when I do this mod.

 

Fine line Sharpie,10mm socket with extension,small Phillips screwdriver,
8mm open end wrench, real small Phillips screwdriver, larger Phillips screwdriver, and the 2 shims.

The Mighty KLR and all it's glory.

Remove the 3 screws on the out side of the cowling and then the 2- 10mm bolts on the inside, you can unplug the
turn signal wires if you like or just let the cowl rest on the front fender as I have in this photo. All you need to do is
be able to access the screws and nuts and speedo cable.

Remove the 2 screws the hold on the cover for the wiring harness, the speedo cable, and the 2-8mm nuts that hold
the cluster on the front bracket.

Now the cluster can be removed from the bracket to access the back side.

 Do not forget to remove the reset knob for the odometer, there is a SMALL screw in there, so don't loose it.
unscrew the screw and pull the know straight out.



Now with the cluster removed from the bracket, undo the 3 screws that hold the front bezel (the black thing) in place.
There is one screw on the right and one on the left and then one just to the left of center on the top.



We will start with the speedo first, This one is the most trickiest one to do so just have patients. Remove the 2 screws on either side of the speedo cable connection, and carefully slide out the instrument without disturbing the magnets in the housing.

Once you get it apart, mark with the sharpie a line on the outer ring of the mag to line up with the tab on the magnet and a line on the housing so everything is lined up, this is for reference for being able to put the needle back in the right spot.

Now unscrew the 2 screws on the front of the plate and insert the 2 shims, skinny ends first, in between the plate and the housing making sure that the 2 shims are opposite and placed as close to each other as possible.

 One shim pushing, one pulling.
                              



 

Notice how the shims are together and opposite each other and close to one another, also the hole in the plate and the bottom of the needle are flush to one another. Now apply SLOW and even pressure from Both sides of the shims and re-adjust if necessary, Just GO SLOW AND CAREFULLY WITH THIS, you do not want to break the needle.

WHEW!

Now the the plate is off, you can breathe a breath of fresh air. Also be careful of the black tabs on the wheels for
the speedo, you don't want to break these.

Next, screw on the new plate, almost there.

Once the new plate is on, make sure that all the marks that you made are still lined up in
a row. Then put the needle back on so it is just resting on the pin, everything needs to be lined up, I guess I all ready said that
but I guess that I needed to just say it again.

This is the way that it should look, with the needle just resting on the pin. Now you can re-install the speedo

back into the cluster and screw it down.

Next, undo to wiring from the back of the tach, and the 2 screws that hold it in. Don't forget the 2 screws that
hold the face on in the front of the plate where the temp gage is.

Housing with the tach removed, you do not have to remove the needle from the temp gage, just very carfully work the unit out.
It just takes a little wiggling and it comes out, do not force it.

 The process for the tach is the same as for the speedo.

Just slow and easy.

Screw the new face on.

When you put the needle back on, place it just touching the pin on the underside, press it on and then take
the needle and gently move it over the pin to it's resting place, this is because if there was not a pin
to stop it, it would relax down to aproximatly this position, so it needs to be reset to rest on the pin, at least
that was the way it was on my tach.

The needle in it resting place.

Now just ease everything back in place and screw the screws for the temp gage back in.

Now just re-install all of the wires back into there proper place, if you can't remember the sequence, it is molded into the back so
you can't mess up. Now is the best time to turn over the cluster and turn on the ignition and fire it up to make sure everything
is working properly, lights, tach, etc...
Its a real bummer getting everything all buttoned up and find out you forgot to re-attach something. Don't ask me how I know that.

Everything all buttoned up and ready for a ride, don't forget the re-set knob...


I would like to do this mod for the 2nd generation, but I do not have access to one, so if anyone
is in the Bend area that would like to let me use there's for a template, let me know.

I find that the speedo is just about dead on at 60 and just a little shy at 55 with my gps, but it is a lot better than the OEM ever was.


I hope that all went well for you and your installation, If you have any questions E-mail me at
rwquiring@yahoo.com




ENJOY





Dam blitz

Just got back from my latest adventure with the bike, a 860 mile road trip to see and take a picture of my bike at some of the dams and reservoirs in the great state of Oregon.

The first day was the longest with 580 miles, the first dam was Gerber which is located east of
Klamath Falls about 30 miles through some cool farming communities, I have never been to the east side of KF so this was all new country for me.



It was already hot at 9:30 in the morning and I had a lot of miles to go.

Next one on the list was Selmec over by Grants Pass, If anybody has the chance to travel the road from Klamath Falls to Medford, that is a great road, and wonderful scenery to boot. Once I got to Medford, I went Through Jacksonville, Applegate, and a few more small towns, this is were I made one of my only wrong turns, the cut of to Wilderville was not found and I ended up in Grants Pass so I had to head back south to get to Selma, all was good and only a couple of miles out of the way.

This one was not a very big dam so it was kind of anti-climactic. So onward and upward (to the north) I went, Back to Grants Pass and I-5, If you ever have a chance to drive north on I-5 on a KLR with the wind howling from the north, DON'T... Are people crazy or what?

Once I was in Roseburg, I was able to get off the slab and go to Whistlers Bend park and found the small irrigation reservoir, which reminded me of Reimer Reservoir, for those of you who don't now that one, It's the reservoir that Teresa's Dad and Uncle built years and years ago on the farm in the Dallas area.




It was so nice and peaceful that I just wanted to stay and jump in and cool off.

 But alas, I need to get one more for the day and so I turned around and went back to I-5 reluctantly. Heading north again to hwy 58 and to the town of Lowell and Fall creek res.

At this point, all I wanted to do was find a camp spot and lay down, It was about 7:30 so I found a campsite about 7 miles down the road and proceeded to set up camp, It was a small site and no one was around, perfect, set up the tent and did some house keeping and started to make dinner, THAT was a fiasco let me tell you, needless to say I made a mess of my Chili, oh well live and learn I guess, Next time it will be freezed dried food all the way.

The next morning, after a restless night I got up at 5:30, packed up and headed to the nearest place to get some coffee, I decided to take the road less traveled and more scenic, there are some very nice places to go if you just want to take it a little slower and smell the roses... Made it to the final dam of the trip, which was in Silverton.

After bagging the dams, I needed to go and see my Mom and Frank in Dallas, Mom is recovering from a nasty tumble down the stairs, she is doing all right but was pretty banged up. I had a wonderful time at my Uncles place visiting with all the relatives from my moms side of the family. Then on the next morning I headed for home, yea!

Sorry for just MC photos but that was all I had time for, I have ONE more dam to get, and that one is in Heppner, I may just go and head up to the Tri-Cities and visit Trenton and Erica on that trip, so until next time.....