Making stuff

Sorry no post for ages, trying to get the magazine finished, earn a living and spending some time in the workshop to try and complete my Stornello Scrambler project I've been working on for a few months - an hour or two a week, that is..

Anyway, I've enjoyed making some bits and pieces that I needed but wouldn't be able to buy. Luckily there's a metal working company near where I keep the bikes so there's always plenty of scrap around. I needed brackets for the mudguard to raise it up in the forks, then a simple bash plate to stop the front of the motor getting wrecked by the rocks that the bike will probably never ride over - but it looks good and though in aluminium is pretty strong. It's like anything, the more time you spend on it, the better it'll be, but I'm happy for these bits to do the job and not be perfectly polished.

Roll your own - simple workshop pleasures

I needed a bracket to hold up one end of the high-level exhaust on the Moto Guzzi Stornello Scrambler 160 project I've been working on for, well, months. The thing is about Italian motorcycles, especially these small Guzzi singles, and in particular the Scrambler models, you don't, or more accurately can't,  just buy the parts off the shelf. In contrast in the UK there's a huge industry that caters for the needs of Brit Iron owners - parts are remade and can easily found and ordered online, arriving next day.

Because these smaller Italian-manufactured machines were pretty much disregarded by the Italians themselves until reasonably recently, there isn't a comprehensive spares service or parts remanufacture like there is for say big Guzzis or bevel Ducatis. It's a case of trawling Ebay and the small ads websites for sometimes months, hoping the desired bits may turn up.

I haven't got months, and anyway it's August, and Italy is closed for business. So, hacksaw and file in hand, I made the required bracket myself. Much as I'd like to, I don't have access to lathes or metalworking equipment, but for a bracket, you don't need much. A bit of patience and a steady hand -  I was always pretty good at making Airfix Stuka kits when I was a kid. Forty minutes later it was done and on the bike.

Satisfaction guaranteed and problem sorted.

You'll always find me in the kitchen at parties

This is another bike I own and used to live in our kitchen as I had nowhere else to put it. My wife was very understanding, bless her.

It's a '72 Moto Guzzi Stornello Scrambler 125, in completely original and untouched condition. I got it for nothing really as part of a block purchase of a few bikes while living in Italy. It's a single cylinder four stroke, really simple and robust. I cleaned it, oily ragged it, changed the oil, put on a new battery and off it went. Brought it back to the UK and used it to ride round London for a year. Lovely!