“For many years I had a great deal of difficulty finding metal shaping equipment small enough to fabricate the tight radius and compound curves found on motorcycle parts. So immediately after completing RAW in bare metal Georgio and I decided to design and make a high-quality bench mounted cast iron, Australian made wheeling machine. We started in Oct/Nov 2012 and with the help of a skilled pattern maker and master machinist we had a prototype by approximately May 2013.”

“After completing approximately 1000km of testing and problem solving on the CBX we began the strip down immediately after the Throttle Roll event in May 2013. There were a number of issues to deal with and some things I thought would really improve the bike. Julian began the process by stripping, inspecting and measuring all the components. With only 9000US miles on the bike, it was totally unmolested internally, the biggest problem was the cylinders were glazed and as a result, kept fouling plugs and burning through oil. The plan was progressing well and again the deadline was the Ton Up boys Sydney Rockers Ride (October 13, 2013), that’s our annual unveiling event for new concepts and completed bikes.”

“Julian meticulously replaced all the rings, seals and bearings in the engine, simply because they were rock hard and after being disturbed would leak. The cylinder head was vapour blasted and rebuilt as a precaution and the cylinders honed. The engine parts have had quite a lot of time put into finishing them. We used traditional Cafe Racer and Honda racing colours and whatever coatings (ceramic, paint, plating, polishing, vapour blasting) would produce the best result.”

“I hadn’t been happy with any of the headlight brackets or instrument mounts available so I decided to make new parts that were more in keeping with the overall design and intent of the bike. Looking closely at it there are many small details that I’ve done to the bike to improve the quality of the components and to add some of my own style of bling. For example, the original seat cracked the alloy base (my design fault) so iI redesigned the seat base and padding. When I took the seat for trimming (Hytone motor trimmer in Sydney) I asked them if they saw the bike parked in the street and were looking at another trimmers work I would like them to think that its a quality piece of craftsmanship. That’s my underlying philosophy for anything that is worthy of anybody’s dedicated time and effort. As JohnBritten said “you can spend the same amount of time making something ugly”.” “The frame was re-blasted and powder coated white, also all the little brackets and parts that had been fabricated had the finishing touches done to them. I was really impressed with the nickel plating from swift electroplaters (its a surface plating developed prior to chrome 1920-30’s used on vintage cars). The paintwork of the components (Thanks to Garry Hall) and the polishing, powder/ceramic coating, vapour blasting etc was all coming along very well. I was leaving the hardest parts till last because i was getting bogged down in the small details.”