Friday, 15 May 2009

Titanium Shoes!

I'm going to skip out a crazy weekend's racing at Anglesey... fill you in later.
Tomorrow morning just after a sparrow's fart (05h00 ) I leave for the BMF Bike show at Peterborough for the next round of ShortTrack. The Moster is prepped and ready to go (with a new clutch!). First practice @ 08h30 ... doh!

I didn't have a steel shoe solution... until this evening.

I now have a custom TITANIUM shoe to drag around the clay in the morning.

Using the latest NASA-grade 14.78 militwip guage Titanium sheet  (I found some common, garden variety titanium sheet in the garage that is a offcut I got from a guy that makes exhausts).
 


Use the latest CAD technology (or a permanent marker) to design the 'shoe'...







Have the Ti sheet laser or water-jet cut (or use some tin-snips)


Using a billet-cut plug and die, form the heel of the shoe, lazer-cut and countersink the eyelets (hammer and pliers will do... countersinking done by hammering a screw in)


Use the same precise fabrication techniques to make the foot of the shoe (yes, I know... I skimped a bit on this one...)


Attach the heel and foot to the boot using milled attachment widgets (short, chunky screws will do)



And there you have it. A Ti hot shoe - as used by Neil Armstrong!

You won't see many folks in the paddock with this kind of bleeding edge technology under-foot!

I just hope it does the job of saving my boot and lasts more than 1 heat.

Hey... it might spark like a muthafucka too! It'll be the fourth of Jool-eye all over again!

Yee-haw!

Gonna git a few hours shut eye before the first test of this device...

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