Yo ho ho…nda!

Very cool Christmas ad, very uncool use of (admittedly hot) female to sell Baby Dream Benlys… Have a great Christmas.

Royal Enfield Bullet Lucas ammeter ‘conversion’ – free

Ladies and gentlemen, the Royal Enfield instrument panel – 'casquette' in Enfield speak – the Redditch company's take on Triumph's nacelle, shown here in its largely faithful Indian-built incarnation. Largely, because there's a couple of glaring exceptions to its appearance and it isn't difficult to guess which they are…

Both speedometer and ammeter are decidedly unappealing but of the two, the OE ammeter is worst. With its lumpen green and red detail the best that can be said of it is that it's visible – much like dog shit sprayed with fluorescent paint is visible. The speedo doesn't exactly shout 'period' but it is, arguably, a little less offensive.

For many owners, riding is what owning a Bullet is all about and the instruments exist for reference and no more – bollocks to appearance. For others, the machine is a canvas on which to paint their notion of a 1950s mount, some even going so far as to rebuild the bike with a rigid rear courtesy of Hitchcock's catalogue of tempting bling.

I fall somewhere between the two: I like period appointments but I'm cheap and mean, which means I'd rather put the cash in the tank or at the least, spend it on practical upgrades. And wherever possible I prefer to roll my own.

Ammeter looks even worse now

Okeh, so I was tempted by a Smiths Chronometric knock-off on ebay at under 20 quid. Two minutes to fit, looks cool and suprisingly accurate according to GPS (the odometer however is…well, shit, frankly).

To complement it, I wanted a Lucas ammeter but for a cheapskate the cost is prohibitive, and no mount of jumbling turned up one at suitable voltage any cheaper.

Time to think laterally…

It occurred to me that the OE ammeter is dirt cheap when new and practically giveaway, used, on ebay after a Lucas upgrade. Cheap equates to candidacy for experimentation which meant I could experiment with mine and replace it cheaply if it all went tits up as the say. After all, there's nothing actually wrong with the original, it works perfectly well as an ammeter.

With access to any kind of DTP or drawing software and a printer, you can draw a new face which looks just like a Lucas or Miller instrument with which to transform your original. Find inspiration by looking at vintage ammeters on ebay and draw one according to what you like best. Here's what I chose:

I found this ammeter on a bike for sale on ebay, copied it using Adobe's InDesign…

…and printed off plenty of examples as back-ups

Removing the ammeter from the bike is as easy as disconnecting the battery and undoing a couple of nuts from its terminals. With the ’bars at left lock you can access the instrument at the headstock as well as from the front of the casquette with the headlamp removed. Once undone, the ammeter is pushed upwards to free it from the bike. Be aware that it's a tight fit and may require some persuasion. Don't be tempted to strike it with anythng hard – the casing is very soft alloy and easily warped or split.

Now the fun starts. There's no easy way to disassemble the device because the bezel is crimped in place. However, with a jeweller's screwdriver, you can carefully work the soft alloy of the rim, gradually loosening it until it comes free, revealing the face within.

After cutting out a slot for needle deflection I carefully pasted the new face into place. The bezel went back on with a bit of persuasion and I used the rounded end of a pencil to pinch it down and secure it. A smear of clear bathroom sealant around the body and the face of the ammeter sealed it. Back in place and connected up it worked a treat and looked pretty good too. I suppose the new face may fade over time but with a bit of luck fading will add patina for greater 'authenticity'.

A marked improvement over the original (reflection from overhead strip lights)

And when did you last see your Father?

Sometime in 1983 is the short answer, just before he died, which means I can't ask him about this picture – date, location and so on. However, I do know he owned a James in his late teens and here he is astride the machine in a recently discovered negative from a 127 roll film.

The bike is a mid-’50s 200cc James Captain in smart maroon livery with pinstriping detail on the tank. Beyond, at the top of the hill, is what looks like a Standard Eight (’53-’59).

I love the (probably inadvertent) painting-like quality of this photograph and for me, it epitomises all that motorcycling was in the 1950s: a care-free, no helmet ride on quiet roads with the sun always shining.

Avoid pressed plates – paint your own

I like classic bikes. I don't like reproduction ('repop' in transatlantic-ese) pressed number plates. In fact, I loathe them. Whether restored and gleaming or rumpled, rusted and wonderful there's nothing that lets a bike down more than a quick squint at the rear showing up a repop pressed aluminium plate looking like a gold bonnet mascot on an invalid carriage. Ugly. Untoward. Unnecessary. Wrong.

Truly awful!

Obviously there were pressed plates in the 1950s and ’60s, probably in the ’30s and ’40s too, but for the most part, the 'classic' number plate was freehand (or possibly stencilled), white paint on a plain black sheet of ally or steel.

Much better! This is what we're aiming for…

Few cared what the number plate looked like. And no-one felt the need to waste their hard-earned on a plate that heralded its owner as someone with more cash than sense and an unhealthy obsession with pointless detail (that would be saved for readers of classic bike magazines published by Morton's). A registration plate was simply a necessary adjunct to a pleasurable life astride two-wheels. Something decreed by men in striped trousers somewhere in Whitehall. Necessary for the common good perhaps, not necessary for attention beyond being in place to put you on the right side of some curmudgeonly copper.

And the thing about painted plates is they age. Beautifully. The paint chips and fades, the plate, buckled, scratched and holed in places looks right. Take the time and trouble to restore a bike or maintain one in original condition and it's surely worth the small effort to recreate an original plate rather than toddling off to ebay for a pressed affair with all the charm of a fart at a funeral.

For bike enthusiasts with access to a computer (er, you) and a cheap printer (or a local library with free access) recreating the look of original plates is simple. Fire up a word processor, DTP package or any program with which you can manipulate text, type in your registration number and apply a suitable style. I use Arial Black at 164pt with appropriate leading and kerning tweaks.

Plate stencil using QuarkXPress

Print off a couple of copies. Take one and coat the rear with a thick layer from a stick of white chalk. Position your sheet of black enamelled steel or ally cut from an abandoned road sign or whatever on your bench, and cover it with the print-out, numbers up, chalk down. Fix in place with masking tape.

Now, with a sharp pencil, carefully trace the outlines of the letters with the pencil magically transferring the chalk onto the plate. When you're done, remove the print-out. No need for great delicacy, the chalk outline is pretty robust.

Time for paint. I find the best is Humbrol white enamel for a 'just registered' look, or white enamel with a hint of a Humbrol brown stirred in for a creamy, aged appearance. Experiment to find the look you prefer. Using a fine brush, paint in the letters and numbers taking special care not to go over the lines (the curves are trickiest). Set the plate aside to dry.

6x4 white on black, painted but not aged

You can age the plate further by putting it on the ground and dropping handfuls of pebbles and earth on it, wiping it over with an oily rag afterwards. Homebrewing your own plates in this way is quick, cheap, easy and satisfying and makes for a plate that's far better than anything you can buy.

If you want to make a black-on-yellow plate use the same method but find some yellow plastic for the plate rather than attempting to paint it – it's difficult to source the correct yellow hue. The 7x5 yellow plate shown below was made from plastic cut from a discarded Addis kitchen bin with plenty left over to make more plates.

7x5 black on yellow – better from a distance

Bath-time for Burnerd

It's a well-made small lathe the Grayson, 3.5inch swing over a gap bed, backgeared and screwcutting, solid, dependable, from an age when a thing well-made – even to a price – gave pleasure to maker and consumer alike. And it's a description that might easily be applied to the lathe's erstwhile owner – solid and dependable. Erstwhile because, in his 80s, he shuffled off after a lifetime in engineering, leaving his beloved little Grayson behind in his shed.
 

Grayson in its original setting

I first met him at his retirement do, the plus-one of his daughter and my future wife. He was chief designer at Westinghouse, based on the top floor of the famous Douglas building in Hanham Road, Kingswood. The shed is just a few minutes walk from that office and forms a triangle with the house he had built to his own design in 1960. The greater part of half a century going from home to office, office to home, home to shed. You can easily imagine a similar existence for the great Lawrence Sparey.

Now the Grayson lives in my workshop (read 'garage'), shoehorned in alongside my bikes and replacing an elderly Myford ML7 and a Chinese-built minilathe before that (surprisingly useful once fettled).

ML7 replaced by humble Grayson

Grayson with home-made stand and chip tray

The Grayson is better than the minilathe and not quite as good as the Myford but when you're short on space yet big on fondness and respect you'll happily swap out the ML7 and instate the Grayson in its stead. I would. I did. Now it makes chips for me and while I'm not big on the notion of the hereafter, I sincerely hope that if he's 'up there' somewhere, wandering about in a stores coat and poring over tolerances with a mic, he's somehow aware of how much the Grayson is loved in its new home.

Loved, that is, with an exception: the Burnerd three-jaw chuck that came with it. Having rested for a few years unloved in a shed, it's become a hellish wrestling match to use. A tight scroll and jaws means using it is almost a two-handed affair. In short, if you're the type of bloke who looks like Mac before he gambled a stamp, turning the scroll in this beast is hard work. Time for a CLA…

First step, remove the chuck from the lathe. Graysons have a threaded spindle compatible with Myford and so unless it's stuck, removing the chuck is a simple matter of engaging back gear to lock the spindle and giving the chuck a smart tug. Be sure to have a  bed board in place then unscrew in the conventional way.

First step: remove the chuck and wind out the jaws

Stripping varies from model to model but once it's on the bench the process is broadly similar: remove the jaws by winding them out of the chuck. Look for a register mark spanning the backplate and chuck and if there isn't one, mark it with a Sharpie, engineer's blue, chalk, scribe or whatever. Loosen the three bolts (or set screws) holding the backplate to the chuck and remove it.

Undo the bolts holding the backplate to the chuck

Inside there are three further set screws holding the scroll gear cover. Undo the screws and persuade the cover to come out – don't pry it and don't drop it when it comes out unexpectedly.

Jaws, backplate, gear cover and associated screws

Undo the threaded pins located alongside each chuck key gear, remove them and their respective gears. Now you can remove the scroll. Insert a brass drift through the front face of the chuck and give the scroll several smart raps – you might have to work at it to shift it.

Use a brass drift…

…to remove the scroll

With the scroll removed the chuck is reduced to its constituent parts. Give everything a wash and brush up in a bath of paraffin, brake cleaner or some other suitable thinner.

Paraffin bath for Burnerd

Allow it to dry (you can help using paper towels), oil sparingly (some prefer grease – your choice) and reassemble being sure to line up any register marks, replace the chuck key gears in their numbered housings etc.

Be sure to correctly reinstall numbered parts

Reinstate the chuck on the lathe. Now you'll have a chuck that is free and a pleasure to use.

Spruce chuck back in place

Incidentally, always store a chuck jaws down (that is, standing on its opened jaws). It's counter-intuitive but there's less chance of upsetting the backplate register and reduced opportunity for foreign matter to find its way into the scroll.

Coming soon: the Royal Enfield 500 Twin my father-in-law owned and loved as a young man (yes, despite a background in engineering!)