Thread: 2/3 scale Brough Superior

There looking pretty darn good Charlie.
Well worth a try mate!.

Over the last few weeks I've been trying to get the words ON and OFF onto the regulator of the oil pump.
Crowie was nice enough to send me down some old coins, one of them was a Florin which had the letters in the word that I was looking for.
The only thing was that the letters where just a little to big.
After awhile I thought of the lettering on the bottom of a matchbox car which has nice small raised words on it.
But I found it was almost imposable for me to isolate each of the letters I needed, take a mould of them and then join the letters up to form the words.

3mm seems to be pretty much the limit for me when it comes to how small I can go using my method.
Then while talking to Charlie I mentioned I was looking for old ON and OFF switch's with very small lettering.
And it looks like his found one.
Even though the lettering is really small, the words are already formed.
So I should be able to get them onto the oil pump.
"Here's Hoping"

I know at the end of the day it's not as if anyone will even notice them, but it's a bit of fun (If not a little frustrating).

Cheers
Trev.

Charlie's plastic clock back with the ON and OFF written on it turned up yesterday.
He wasn't joking when he said the letters where small.
But as it happens their just right for what I needed.

IMG_0189.jpg

The clock part even had an arrow on it that I could use of the position indicator.
The five cent piece gives an idea of how small it is.

There's still a few marks I wont to get out, but it's not easy trying to sand around such tiny things.
Still nice to have it done although it will be nicer when I get some stuff out of storage and I can get stuck into the frame!.

Cheers
Trev.

Unbelievable - Top Stuff - and I stupidly said you couldn't do it - BRILLIANT

Charlie

Hey Trevor, you holding out on us with progress or you been distracted

Originally Posted by rwbuild

Hey Trevor, you holding out on us with progress or you been distracted

No mate just been waiting to get back to the storage locker to grab the things I need to build the frame.
A trip is booked in around the end of the month so I should be back working on the Brough fairly soon!.

But I must admit I've been more than happy just enjoy the new place and taking it easy of late!.
It's been a long time since I've had a place of my own to call home.
Let alone 6 acres of what I'd call heaven!.
So you maybe right about the distraction.

Cheers
Trev.

For those who have been on this fabulous journey since the beginning, you will know that Trevor has long wanted to work his replica-magic on the Brough Superior. He has hit a hurdle in replicating his preferred Brough Superior 'Show Model' SS100, due to a lack of data and pictures for the Matchless engine which was fitted to this rare 'Show Model' and to only a minority of all other Brough Superiors. To gain both interest and pictures for this project, we drafted an article for the UK Brough Superior Club and this article (PDF below) has just been published in their September 2016 Magazine.

Trevor Jones Models_v3.pdf
Hopefully, some white knight (or damsel!) will have pictures of a Matchless engine out of its frame and will share them with Trevor

fletty

That's a top article Alan and sure to encourage assistance especially with the connection you made with the owner of the Brough which was the centre of you lens for Trevor.... Cheers, Peter

I concur with Peter's comments' excellent article.

Pretty overcast and rainy down here today, so it seems like a good time to get back in the shed.
I've gotten a little more than half my stuff out of the storage locker, and I made sure the metal working gear was high on the list.
So I should have enough to build the frame for the Brough.

Being the recycler I am I've decided to use the old frame from the Harley as the base for the Brough.
The reason being it was along time ago that I built the Harley and with what I've learned over the years I know I can do a better job of it.
So with a lot of tweaking the Harley frame is about to go Brough!.

As with the Indian to start working out the frame for the Brough I found a picture of a 1926 that's taken pretty much in profile.
Of cause you need to allow for the parallax effect of the image and that the bike is resting on a kick stand, so it's leaning away from the camera.

I've run a few red lines through the picture of 1926 Brough, showing the general parallel alignment of the bike.

1926brough.jpg

As you can see the top line runs from rim to rim passing through the inlet rocker arms.
The centre line runs from axle to axle passing through the oil pump mounted above the timing cover.
The base line is again rim to rim showing the approximation of the crankcase above the ground.
Just this simple layout gives a good indication of how much "Duck Fudging" I'll need to use to get the frame looking to scale.

IMG_0818.jpg

Overall I'd say things are looking pretty good!.
As always the rims are a little oversized, which although a pain, it's a part of the build I've very much come to enjoy.
It's that "Duck Fudging" thing trying to make something look right that you know isn't!.
The other thing I can see straightaway is that the front exhaust is a nightmare, and will need to be remade.

But it looks like there's a 1926 Brough hiding there, so we'll see what we can do.

A huge shout out to fletty by the way for all his help with the Brough.
So very much appreciated mate!

Cheers
Trev.

Trev been ages since poking my nose in this thread amazing to say the least.

I just saw Fletts post in moving here to Ipswich here just happens to be a Vintage motor bike club not 7mins away I have not had the chance to visit yet. I'll forward that pdf on hope it helps.

Ray

George VII is the pet name of the Brough Superior that Lawrence of Arabia was riding when killed. When Trev checked the same parallels on a photograph taken through glass at the Imperial War Museum in London, he noticed that something didn't line up? Most of us would have blamed parallax error, but not our Trev! He was convinced something was wrong and so I asked our contact in the Brough Superior Club in England if they knew anything about this. THEY CHECKED THE WORKS MANUFACTURING CARD for George VII () and found out that, due to Lawrence's 'lack of vertical stature', HIS bike was built with a smaller rear wheel than all other Superiors! This revelation of historic intelligence came from the remote distance of a kitchen table in (then) Mildura! Onya Trev!
fletty

I had a bit of luck the other day and found some chair frames that will come in handy for the Brough.

IMG_0995.jpg IMG_0996.JPG

As you can see in the first picture the legs are a good length when compared with the engine.
The metal in the legs is thicker than the material I used when I built the Harley frame.
I've got some memories of the wielder blowing holes in the metal I used on the Harley.
So I'll use parts from the old Harley frame along with some of the new metal from the chair legs.
Hopefully I can put together something that doesn't look like Swiss Cheese!.

frame a1.jpg

The picture above is from a book Terry sent back with fletty from England.
It gives me a pretty good look at the 1926 frame.
If you read the caption underneath you'll get an idea of why I'm reworking the old Harley frame.
It's a bit of a giveaway when the front forks are mentioned.

Cheers
Trev.

Top Stuff to see you back on the Brough

Charlie

Great to see you back on the bike Trev