DesmoDog

I've imported one from Canada, is that close enough?

Do you need me to go unplug something and then plug it back in?

It's certainly up there on the list. When they came out (1993 in USA) I saw one at my local Ducati dealer. I was still making payments on my 907 but this thing blew me away. I stood and stared at it for a while, running numbers in my head, trying to figure out if I could afford it. I should have sold the 907 and bought the Superlight but I passed. I don't think I knew it would be a one year only bike in the USA, but I regretted not buying it. In '95 I bought a 900ss and it started my Ducati only phase. In 2000 I traded the 900 in on a monoposto 996. I passed on the red one they had in stock and instead had the dealer find me a yellow one, guess why? I bought a /97 '900ss a few year later because I like that era Super Sport. Superlights were rare/expensive so I got an SP instead. Sold it a few years later. I got the 851 after I was telling my buddy about the 900ss I wanted to build, and he said "why not just get an 851". Huh. Yeah, why not! Then I thought maybe I could sell the 851 and finally buy a Super Light, I found out 851s weren't worth as much as I thought, and Super Lights were more expensive than I thought. Oh well, I'd be "stuck" with an 851. Poor me. Gave up on finding a Superlight. I could build a hot rod 900ss for less. When I ordered the Streetfighter, I had to sell my V85TT to help fund it. The ad clearly stated "no trades". I got trade offers anyway. The first one was for literal trash. The second one... a Super Light that had been sitting for 20 years. Long story with weird details. I figured it had to be trash too, so started writing my reply rejecting the offer, but as I was writing I talked myself into getting more info before turning him down. Long story short, I took the trade and then had to sell my 851 to help find the Street Fighter. So after 30 years of lusting after one, making a few searches and eventually deciding it'd be a bike I'll never own (like an RC30) I had one come find me. Now about that RC30...

Ah... we're doing photos now? Hmm.. I haven't got all of them but I'll take a shot My 907 was world famous! Sort of. Didn't take any of my RD - these were pre-digital photography days. Here's one my friend took (#907). I got my provisional racing license on it, but never raced. Long story. Ok this is taking too long finding photos - here's a group shot from the height of my obsession. 996, 851, 907, 1200S Monster, 160 Monza Jr. (I don't own any of these anymore) A better shot of the Monza Jr. I changed it a little. The Aprilia The Super Light And the Streetfighter I left a few out because they pre-dated digital photography or I just didn't have any digital pics handy. The only two shown that I still own are the Superlight and the Streetfighter.

I'm working on building a metal version of the chain guard off of an alleged pre-war prototype Ducati that was found in a barn after someone's grandfather died. He was married to an Italian woman he called "Fantsasma" who was related to or maybe dating the guy who had Taglioni's job before Taglioni did so it was probably stolen or at least hidden by someone she knew before the factory got bombed. The grandpa died before I was born so I can't ask about details. Rumor has it Ducati was working on a big single before the war broke out, but got distracted by bombs going off and stuff. When the war ended there wasn't a market for a big single so they started out producing smaller bikes, then broke out the old drawings and got back to the bigger singles later on. Of course by then a hard tail wouldn't sell so it had a rear suspension when it reached production, but you can see the similarities between it and the production bikes. Obviously being a prototype a lot of the original parts are unobtainable, so I've used later parts where they fit and fabricated details and parts where nothing was available. No color pictures exist of the bike so it's anyone's guess how it might have looked if it had ever been built. In fact not much info at all exists on the bike, so a lot of what is being said is open to conjecture. Another opinion is it's a bike that started life as a joke but that's just crazy talk. Who in the hell would start building a bike just because someone offered him a free, damaged frame after he joked he had almost enough spare parts to build a counterpoint to the over sized, under braked, over priced choppers that were so popular in the US for a few minutes back in the day? That's just stupid. No one would do THAT. Pre-war prototype is the only thing that makes sense.

1991 Ducati 907ie Yamaha RD 350 race bike made out of three bikes (so does that make it 2, 3, &4?) Honda Hawk NT650 Kawasaki KDX250 1995 Ducati 900ss/cr Honda Ascot, FT500? The single cylinder. Was going to be a racebike. Big life event happens, project abandoned and sold before it even got started. 2000 Ducati 996 1974ish Ducati 750GT 1966 Ducati Monza 1966 Ducati Monza Jr Ducati Bitsa - a single being built mostly out of leftover parts from the other two projects 1997 Ducati 900ss/sp 2011(?) Ducati 796 Hypermotard 2015 Ducati Monster 1200S 1991 Ducati 851 2003 Aprilia RSV Mille R - set up for track use 2020 Moto Guzzi V85TT 1996ish Ducati 900ss/sp Track bike 1993 Ducati 900SS Superlight 2022 Ducati Streetighter V2 The Aprilia and Moto Guzzi were an attempt to branch out a bit. Both were replaced with Ducatis within a couple years. I spent ten years trying to buy a 1954 Harley KHK off a friend. He never wanted to sell when I had the money, I didn' t have the money when he thought about selling. Someone else finally got the timing right.

Is it wrong that I saw that and my first thought was "But his car wouldn't leave tracks like that"? Yeah, I'm a lot of fun at parties...

More printing today. Fake oil tank this time. Half of one anyway. This is getting monotonous for me too now, so I just click on the normal options and let it roll while I go do other things. I'm back to deafulting to taking a time lapse though, because, um, why not? It's kinda like watching paint dry. I'm sure you lot will enjoy it though! Key-ryst I need to find better hobbies.

I'm not so sure I'd put any of this in the amazing category... maybe an amazingly long time to get anything done... I started working on this in 2005. I'll post up a summary when it's done, I've already got a couple ongoing threads to maintain and this doesn't seem like the place for that sort of ongoing project thing. I don't recall those specifically but I have seen prices on brakes get a bit ridiculous. The Oldani I posted is a replica, I got a decent deal on it from a British shop. It was on consignment and the shop owner just wanted it gone - the brake owner owed the shop owner money from what I recall.

No but the one on my other old Ducati project is. (shown below) That reminds me though. I do have some Honda parts I could put in there that would make it a twin leading shoe brake... I may do that before it's all said and done.

In theory I could, in practie I wouldn't. Plating is expensive so I'm avoiding it on this project. There is also at least one place that 3D prints the sand mold itself but that's beyond what I can do here.

When I cleaned up the spoke nipples it took the plating off, so they're brass now. They're small so it's pretty subtle though. When I rebuild the engine some of the fittings will receive the same treatement, so there will be brass parts sprinkled around on it here and there. But probably not the tail light.

I should have figured the Harley crowd was doing it. I'd prefer the look of raw aluminum over green bronze... and there's no way I'm constantly polishing the damn thing to keep it shiny. I've got better things to rub out. Wait, that didn't sound right...

It won't be white. It most likely won't even be that actual part. I won't worry about the type of paint until the part is finally finalized for the final and last and final final time, instead of that white part which will be bolted to the bike during the mock up phase. Basically I'm putting everything in the general shape I'm going to use for now, then I'll tear it back down and do the final finish on everything, painting and polishing the bits as they go back together. I may reprint the light housing in ABS (the stuff things like Legos are made out of) before it gets painted? That would require building an enclosure for the printer though. The ideal case would be to print it out of wax and use that for a pattern to have it cast out of aluminum. There are filaments available intended for lost wax casting but that would probably take another redesign or three to make it better suited for the task. I thought about trying that at home (my dad sandcast some things for me back when I was a little guy, he taught metal shop in school) but will probably try to find an artist type to do the actual casting. But if I do that it'll probably come back to me in bronze... hmm... a bronze tail light... that'd set it apart in a crowd I suppose. And now through the wonder of mock up parts, I've found my fancy fender mounts prevent me from fitting/removing the chain guard with the fender/chain in place. Which isn't ideal. Looks like a two piece guard is in the cards. Back to the drawing board... and the last part for the one piece guard hasn't even been removed from the print bed yet.

I do have a camera on it, but it's only to monitor what's going on. I have pretty much given up on doing timelapses since I never did anything with them anyway. That said here are a couple I did when it was set up to do it automatically - obviously I didn't optimize anything to make them look good. There are a ton of choices to make it look different, you can freeze the extruder so it looks like it's just moving straight up, or move it off to the side entirely, or let it move around, or a bunch of other crap. Some of them have an effect on the quality of the print so my default is now "off". Also the webcam I use sucks (doesn't handle anything less than ideal lighting very well, doesn't auto focus, etc) and the position of the camera isn't great for this sort of thing. I guess the second one is recent, I updated some software and reset some defaults, but it's been turned off again already. http://teamyikes.com/Hardtail/06_Phil_A_Ment_20210115052430.mp4 http://teamyikes.com/Hardtail/Tail Light Housing v4.aw_20230107011406.mp4 Anywhos... last week I was working on tail lights. The light I wanted to use was made for a larger fender, it didn't fit the radii of the smaller fender very well so I printed an adapter to make it fit. I thought I liked it but every time I left it a while and came back I decided I didn't like it after all and tried to change it. I've printed so many of them in so many materials and designs it's embarrassing. I finally accepted it wasn't going to work and I may as well do the entire light. It will require sanding and painting but should work. I started out thinking I'd use an incandescent bulb because an LED would look out of place on the bike it's going on, then decided to use an LED panel I had for another light/bike. With an LED I can go smaller and won't have to deal with heat. Here's a family shot of the changes that were made long the way. I forgot, this place doesn't let me hotlink photos from my website cuz it's not https... so the first pic is the family of tail lights. Second is the stl file (digital model basically) for the "final" version. Last pic is the earliest version sitting on the fender. This week's project is a chain guard. It's too long to fit the printer bed so it needs to be done in pieces. I'm on the third iteration now and as per usual, as soon as I start printing it I think of something I want to change. It's now 3;20 am here and the shim I printed to mimic the latest change I want to make just finished printing so the last piece that took two hours to print isn't for naught... no pictures of any of that stuff. It's still ugly. It will be a while before that one's done, each change so far has involved starting over from the beginning, not minor tweaks.

What does supervising a basketball game consist of? You're gonna be mayor of that place soon enough! Was dinner in one of the casinos? I don't recall anywhere with that many screens very near you... My day will consist of more 3D printing of things for an old bike, it's so much easier than doing actual mechanical work and you don't have to wash grease off your hands when you're done.

That doesn't surprise me. As a Harley rider you're obviously obsessed with overweight shit.

I dunno, I liked it enough to take one home.

Somehow this thread reminds me of a barefoot shoemaker...

Yeah, sort of, about 25 years ago. And the street version was only available in Poland or something like that. Bare minimum to make the race version legal for the superbike class. That picture looks like a computer rendering of the VR1000? It's been too long for me to spot the changes but either the joke is Harley keeps reintroducing old bikes, or someone has updated the VR1000 in photoshop for some reason. As for the real one, If it had been available in the USA and somewhat similar in price to a Ducati I would have owned one. As it was, the few I saw available in the USA after the fact were about $65k if I remember right. I've forgotten all the details but I seem to recall Harely didn't handle the development of the bike very well. Kinda pissed me off but like I said, this many years later I've forgotten the details. EDIT: Never mind. Looking at a real VR1000 that's someone's digital rendition of something inspired by it. Still looks old though. Missing it's winglets. All the cool kids use winglets now.

Me: "A couple guys here ..." You: "Well for a start there are only a couple of peeps..." If it were later in the day after I've had some chocolate I'm sure I'd have some witty retort but for now I've just gotten up (fuck off, I'm retired and sleep in when I want to) and, um, ah crap. I got nothing. Most of the guys who are blowing smoke up each other's asses on the Ducati forums are gay, so I don't join in unless I'm getting paid. Like I said, $20 is $20 and timing belts aren't free.

I don't stop by here as much as I used to, partly because of the season (won't be riding for a while) and partly because it seems every thread I read ends up with someone replying with "gay". A couple guys here apparently have serious obsessions with homosexuality... for fuck sake just admit you're confused and work through it. Nobody cares if/that you're gay. And as I was reading through this thread I saw it fits too. Fucking hilarious. Again. No, really, it's fucking hilarious, each and every time and time again. The imagination it takes to reply with a single word is beyond comprehension. True comedic genius. And FWIW I'm not offended, just bored as fuck seeing it again and again and again and again and, well, you get it. seriously, update the material. We get it already. And for the record, no, I am not gay. But $20 is $20...

Stayed up for DAYS!

A) They are ugly as sin (Past versions more than current ones) B) I don't want a touring bike C) A friend had one. He loved it. I rode it. Did NOT love it. While I am a Ducati fan boy, that does not mean I love all Ducatis.

TL;DR version - At this point it's probably as much experience/familiarity as anything else. 30+ years ago when I was first getting into bikes, I wanted a Honda. Then I went down to Daytona to help out a friend who was racing there and saw someone racing a Ducati F1. That was it, I was hooked. The sound, the rawness of it. And they were the underdog, a small company going up against the Japanese brands. When the time came to buy something, I went against everyone's advice and bought a Ducati as my first bike. Soon after that someone saw the bike and asked if I was a machinist, or an engineer, as if those were the only choices. I told him I was an engineer, why? He said those were the only two types of people who bought those things. Back then there was some truth to that, most owners were rather mechanical. Insert jokes of "making mechanics out of riders since 1949" here. Anyway I have always been pretty mechanically inclined so I fit in. The Japanese companies make great bikes, but there is something generic about them. They feel like they were designed by comittee or something. Take all the branding off a new Yamaha, Honda, Kawasaki and Ducati. The Ducati will be obvious just by sitting on it, without looking at the engine. The others? I'd be lost trying to tell you which was which. I dunno. They just feel right to me and I like the history of the company. Honda and Ducati started building bikes at roughly the same time. The same year Ducati announced they had built their one millionth bike, Honda built their 300 Millionth bike. Every Ducati I've ever owned was built in the same facility, from the '66 160 Monza Jr to the 2015 Monster. (Yes, I've been there, a few times). Bikes are an emotional purchase so I never put much effort into trying to rationalize why I like one more than another. I just go with the one that I keep thinking about. I bought a Hypermotard over an Aprilia whatever even though the reviews all said to buy the Aprilia. I liked the Hypermotard, sold it to buy a Monster 1200S which I REALLY liked. None of the enjoyment I've had riding Ducatis over the years has been lessened by someone pointing out the Japanese whatever is cheaper and makes 10 more HP. So what? They are emotional choices. Buy the one that makes you smile. Newsflash - the bike has never been the limiting factor when I'm out on a ride. Well, aside from the 160 Monza. I'm slow on everything, I don't ride because I'm fast - I'm not. I ride because I like bikes. I once read something along the lines of "if you don't stop and look back at your bike after a ride once in a while, you bought the wrong bike". I'd agree with that. PS - one of my absolute favorite bikes ever is a Honda RC-30. I searched for one once but bought a new 996 instead. Kinda wish I had continued looking for the Honda even though the 996 is the one Ducati I regret selling. Actually I found one, but the dealer still wanted MSRP for it even though it had been sitting on display for years. I passed. Oops, today it'd be worth a lot more than he was asking. But then a long time ago I also delayed calling about a '74 Ducati 750 Super Sport because it needed work and when I finally did call it was already sold. They wanted $700 for it IIRC. In good shape that's a $100k bike today. EDIT: 2003, I'm in Italy with my sister and brother in law. We're standing outside and I tell him there's a Ducati coming. He looks around, there's no traffic. "Where?" Oh just wait, it's coming. Yep, down the street a bike appears and as it goes by he reads "Ducati" on the tank. "Really?" dude... You doubted me??? And yes, I did name one of my dogs "Desmo".