Introduction - Vincent

[Vincent]

Hi All, I made my way here by reviewing a photo of a Vincent Black Lightning from the WVM gathering in Lynden this past weekend and saw the owners name, John H, and did a bit of reading up on the Lightning and somehow found myself here. I'm a ferry ride away on Whidbey Island, and a Norton Owner. We WINOs are a small group of enthusiasts that like to ride together and enjoy a casual bonfire and beer Friday afternoons.

 

[ATinkerer]

Welcome to the group Vincent.

Be sure you look at John's most recent efforts.
His postings in the general category with a topic of Shadow.

Gordon

 

[John H]

Hello Vincent and welcome to the forum. Yes, I was at the WVM show with the Triumph Double and the Lightning.
You will find the Truimph build here as well as the Shadow I a doing now. Are you a WVM member? It's a great group of guys with lots of nice bikes.
Show us some of your stable, photos are always interesting.

 

[Vincent]

Hi John and Gordon. Thanks for the warm welcome. I plan to join the WVM soon. I haven't quite got the hang of the website here but once I figure out how to upload a photo I'll show you the bikes. BTW do you use a web browser to access the site or an app. When I type in the url it says I can use Tapatalk. Thanks

 

[Vincent]

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[Vincent]

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[Vincent]

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[John H]

Nice going Vincent, I see you figured out how to add photos. That is a nice collection too. I don't use taptalk so can't help you there. I think you can still add 3 photos per posting and size must be 300kb or less.
Do you do your own builds or restorations? Look forward to meeting you soon.

 

[Vincent]

Hi John, I haven't done full restorations, but I'm heading in that direction. If you had to do it all over again, what would you have included in your ideal garage? I'll be submitting for permit this week, and still have flexibility with electrical and lighting layouts. I'll post the layout below.

Maybe that's a good topic for a thread - the vintage motorcycle restorer's ideal shop.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Vincent]

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[Vincent]

Here is the shop layout. The idea is one bike in the shop at a time. We will see how realistic that is. In general I do as much of my bike work as I can while staying within the bounds of "do no harm".

 

[Vincent]

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[John H]

It's always nice to have a plan that you can expand :lol: Either way, they seem to get filled up. I added a room I could afford to keep heated as well as do assembly work. It gets crowded with two bikes in there. An extra wide door has come in handy as well as air hose outlets and a couple of 220 outlets. The ceiling has 2x12 rafters at 12" centers so I can add a light winch on a rail at some point.
It's not quite this empty now.

 

[Vincent]

Thanks for the photo. That looks great. Very much like what I have in mind. I am having a NEMA 14-50 240V 50amp outlet for my EV installed and will also be able to use it for a welder. I'm also considering a dedicated outlet for a larger air compressor. What other equipment do you use that require 220V? I have a double door planned between the shop and garage to take the bikes in and out. The Sptfire is currently in the basement back room and was just able to wiggle it through the standard door frame. How wide is the shop as seen in the photo?

 

[John H]

The clean room is 12x16. It was built inside the shop building to camp in while the house was being built. The 'shop' is a 40x85 metal building and though it's insulated it's too expensive to keep heated so when I need to spend much time 'out there' it's heated with a wood stove.
Other equipment that requires 220v are the compressor, lathe, mill, surface grinder, iron worker, welders and such. Some are 3-phase so require a phase converter. My grandsons have a blast when they visit us.

 

[John H]

Oops! amended measurements 27x16 not 12x16. And just enough room to turn around.

 

[Vincent]

Love the bread tray and rack idea. I used to work in a Greek restaurant as a kid. Lot's of bread sticks, more than I care to remember.

 

[John H]

Yeah, I kept a few of these racks when we sold the restaurant. They are great for doing a specific section of a build on each tray.
I PM'd you earlier.

 

[Lotus 54]

I like lots of lights and outlets.
When I did my garage expansion, I did all the electrical and used exposed conduit and surface mounted outlet boxes- lots of them. When I insulated/sheetrocked I did not even try to hide the screws. I wanted to be able to find the studs for mounting things later easier.
Insulation and a heater certainly makes it a LOT more usable too.

I recently had to upsize the wires for my air compressor, since I bought a much bigger one (7.5hp rotary screw). With the external conduit, it was really easy to pull new wire and have proper sizing. Most of the wires are oversize too- since everything just degrades over time.

I put in an exhaust fan up high- helpful if I need to remove and fumes (or steam from making beer).
I wanted to put in a heated floor, but realized since I am not using it all the time- it would take too long to heat up and add all sorts of extra hoops to jump through in permits/inspections.

My garage is fairly small, but I couldn’t make it any bigger on the property and really would have had to just build a new one to get taller (well, almost).
For some reason I am not seeing any of the pictures on this thread.

 

[John H]

Just a test to see if a photo would show up.
This is Dave Tompkins on his 500 Comet. They were to race at the Ridge July 22-24 but it was cancelled. He is the points leader in the 500cc vintage class.