Some cool custom machined components photos:
Arlen Ness’ Untitled
Image by cliff1066™
Individuals in the know contact Arlen Ness “Godfather,” not because he makes gives you cannot refuse, but as a sign of respect for his accomplishments all through a extended and storied career. He is the patriarch of the custom motorcycle sector.
Back in “the day,” circa 1970 BC (Just before Catalogs), when choppers were nonetheless the homespun products of some regional dude with a torch, a hacksaw, a drill press, and a rattle can of flat black paint, Arlen Ness was going for baroque. He gold-plated parts, adorned the aluminum fascia of drive-train elements with ornate engravings, and applied wild splashes of Peter Max-inspired color to the sheet metal. Plush, velour upholstery adorned his seats. If Arlen believed he could squeeze more than a single motor into a frame, he would. It was almost routine—at least for Arlen Ness—to cram two supercharged, Ironhead Sportster engines into a single frame where they would cuddle up to create ungodly heaps of horsepower.
These eccentric-seeking machines had been hallmarks of early 1970s chopper style. Ness was 1 of the very first builders to embrace the extravagant hippie counterculture that blossomed in the San Francisco Bay Region, a place Ness calls property. Some of his motorcycles from this period appear like psychedelic props from a Jefferson Airplane album cover, or as if King Louis XIV of France had commissioned an eighteenth-century, rococo rocket sled to go tooling about the Palace of Versailles. Ness combined “flower power” with horsepower to develop motorcycles that defined an era. He is nevertheless setting the pace for younger builders.
Experimental LOC Launch – 1
Image by jurvetson
You meet the most fascinating people at BALLS. Jim Green pours his own motor propellant. He machines custom motor casings, nozzle, and closures. Each and every of these is a potential point of failure. =)
Right here he is cutting the red “sparky” grains to increase their surface region (accelerating their burn). The red propellant contains a titanium sponge and Midas brake filings among other exciting components. We utilized a single of his green “Swamp Gas” grains instead of a delay charge.
On the flight out to Black Rock, I was reading the Apogee Components (RockSim) book on rocketry. Web page 131 reads:
Producing Rocket Motors
“NO!!! Never ever!!! Do not attempt to make your own rocket motors! Several individuals have died for the duration of attempts to make their personal rocket motors.”
So, I got Jim to sign the page in my book. =)
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