Jafa wroteSo I've started at a new company, and they have some pretty flash 5 axis machining centres and lathes, Autocad Inventor, and most importantly, blokes that know what they're doing. I've come from old traditional workshops with all manual, and mostly imperial, machinery, so it's a pretty steep learning curve learning to use all this gear, but it's very interesting, and opens up a whole new avenue of possibilities as far as making stuff goes.
So I have a drawing of the fork tube ( the gold part that always get gouged by the brake line / speedo cable ), but there's a few important dimensions missing. I'm after a bare tube, don't care if it's been crashed / bent / oval / not usable / whatever, I only need it to measure a few things so I don't have to pull my fork to bits and then not be able to ride the bike for however long it takes us to make a tube and get the CAM programming right, which might be a while. Then it'll be another process to get the anodising the correct shade, and so on. It'll be a long road, but one I'm determined to see the end of.
I've searched the world over the last 4-5 years, and no one I've found can or wants to attempt it, except one guy in Canada that wanted $10K up front, and even then couldn't say it wouldn't cost more depending on how much time it took to get right, if he could even get it dead right. But my time is free, we are allowed to use the workshop after hours for anything, so my only real dollar cost is material ( which still isn't cheap ).
So if someone would like to donate a busted tube to the cause, if I can get it right, they'll get their busted one back, and a pair for the cost of the material.
What a brave attempt ..
If i had a busted one , i would be happy to send it down under... I may be able to help with dimensions, which dimensions are you after ?
