My Workshop

My workbench. Made it myself because I was low on cash and couldn´t afford to buy one.

I am pretty lucky to have so much space. It isn´t easy to find a garage like this around here. Use racks to store stuff and save room.

Building the attic in my other garage.

A friend helping me out repair the floor that was in pieces.

I like everything to have it´s place. Using a wall to hang most common (and unbreakable!) tools saves a lot of room and it provides easy access. You also quickly see any missing tools if you draw an outline with a marker. And cheap - just a big scrap piece of wood, some nails and a marker. You could also use paint to make it nicer, but this is a functional as it gets I think.

The attic where I can store stuff not used a lot and spare parts. By the way, nowadays I have racks there and it still is bulging with stuff and parts.

My lathe : Celtic 14 with one meter between centers. 8 speeds, ranging from 24 to 1000 rpm. This is in fact a Belgian make, used a lot in schools. I worked on a Celtic 14 with 70 cm between points in evening classes so I knew when I bought this lathe that it is virtually indestructible.

Polishing stuff. In this case the connecting rods. Not really necessary, but you never know. Polishing the side of the I-beam removes tiny cracks and reduces chance of breakage. These are in fact rock hard, it took me a long time to get them as beautiful as this. The stains you see are just my greasy fingerprints. Anyone who has tried to photograph a shiny object knows how difficult this is, especially when trying to do a close-up.

A little nifty device Antoni built for me. He´s really good with electronics as well as Yamaha 650 twins. The idea came from me, but it took 2 years finding someone who could help me to finish this idea. It looks dead simple. It is dead simple. But it can perform some pretty complicated tasks. It is in fact a tool for measuring the power output of a bike. Should help me to save money on dynojet-runs. I´m not telling how it works exactly ... yet. I still have to finish the software-program and put it through vigorous testing to see if it meets up to my standards. But I´m very busy now on the rebuilding of my "SnakeIII" bike so this project has been put on ice for some time. Maybe it will help to nag me about it? Well worth a try!

Home made sand blasting cabinet. Very usefull for sandblasting small parts. Parts were bought from a specialised company in Great Britain.

The home made filtering system. This looks so professional I have to say this :o)

Works perfectly though ... The turbine sucks the air through an oil-bath. Air comes out more pure than what you and I breathe! That is the reason for the ´duckhams´ can. If it is clogged up with dirt and sand I can just throw it away and make a new one.

One tip, something that turned out not-so-good with my sand blasting cabinet. Make the bottom as deep as you can, for using glass beads. They sort of cling together and don´t easely drop down. My cabinet has the bottom not deep and steep enough, so I have to fill it with a lot of beads, or have to push the beads down manually from time to time. This does not apply to sand (I use the sand from the beach, filter it and it works a treat!) or that black rough oxide stuff.

One more (recent) pic. The rubber gloves are deteriorating. Anybody can help me find this type of thick rubber gloves cheap?

Problem solved - they are in fact the same kind of gloves used to work with harmful products like acetone and such. They can be found in specialised stores and cost about 15 Euro (2003)

Homemade rusty thing for plying sheets of metal.

Used to work, but the pivot point broke. I admit, the design is flawed. When I get around to it, I´m gonna see to redesign it and maybe salvage some of the parts.

Homemade (yes, really!) tool for compressing the valve springs. Nothing fancy, a bit fiddly, but it works and is dead easy and cheap to make yourself!

This little block of wood makes sure the valves are not pushed down. Just put it in the combustion chamber, under the head.

A simple but very useful machine for mounting tyres. Nothing fancy - just a solid base and tools to get the job done.
Bought it second hand some years ago.

My "carbtune" in action. This is a mercury four cylinder synchronizer. Made entirely out of plastic, and unbreakable. They have special filters in the lines so no mercury can get sucked out, or can get spilled. If you are as clumsy as I am you wouldn´t dare handle ordinary mercury synchronizer. And they work as good as the ordinary mercury based synchronizers, and were pretty cheap because I bought them straight from the company.

I use this to close the link on a new cam chain. Only necessary if you install a new one. You don´t have to break the cam chain, if you slide the bearings of the camshaft you can just get the camshaft out sideways.