The Ducati had not been out yet this year. I’d just made sure the battery was charged, tires filled, chain oiled and my riding gear still fit. All systems GO!
WX data indicated I had until 6:00PM to get the thing done, so I headed West, towards the Hood Canal. Reaching the Ridgetop crest on 303, those plans were unceremoniously, canceled. Many fine (and little traveled) roads exist just a couple of miles from home, so a run through the South County became the plan de jour.
There are some really neat little places that you pass along the way. The first of which is Seabeck. A sleepy little town along the Hood Canal. Decent salmon fishing during the season, but the real score is the Dungenus Crab, and shrip fishing. It’s almost impossible not to limit out. 🙂
Seabeck Washington
From there, the road winds southwest, high and inland from the canal, eventually terminating in the little town of Holly.
Holly Wa
This is where things start to get interesting. Just prior to the road’s terminus, starts the an even smaller lane + 1/2 road to the little burg of Dewatto. Winding up the hill and across the ridge, views of the Olympic mountains are impressive and picturesque.
Road to Dewatto.
Dropping out of the hills, just before the town of Dewatto, you are treated to great vists such as this:
Bay at Dewatto. Olympic reflecting off the Hood Canal.
Riding a little further along the water, and the mountains really begin to loom, despite being miles away, across the Hood Canal.
Storm approaching over the Olympic Mountains.
Not far from the bay, is one of the sweet little treats on this run, a steep up-hill right-hand curve followed by an increasing radius turn to the left, finally topping out on the ridge.
DeWatto Curves
It does not really matter which direction you approach Dewatto, it always delivers.
Looking West, towards DeWatto, Olympics and beyond them, the Pacific Ocean.
The road continues to wind it’s way back towards the larger towns, providing both technical corners and broad open-sight-lined sweepers where… “you can really breath.”
Taking a diversion up Elfandahl Pass, through the ORV parks is key.
75 miles and some time later, it seemed fitting to finish off the day at The Boat Shed for a burger and beer. Ah, life in the Pacific Northwest. It’s full of sweet surprises.
The studio is really coming together. With that implementation of 700Watts of color-corrected lighting, Profoto reflectors, custom backdrops and my new backdrop hanging system.. I’m getting some pretty good results.
Studio Test shot.
I have a part list of what it took to get to this point!
2 3-head aluminum floor lamps
2 1500 watt hot oil space heaters
1 1500 watt force air space heater
8 100 watt 6500k CFL lamps
6 1/4″ eye bolts
2 1/4″ wall hook
9.5 feet of 3/32″ plastic coated galvanized cable
13.5 feet of 3/32″ coated galvanized cable
16.5 feet of 1/8″ coated galvanized cable
6 1/8″ cable loop ends
6 1/8″ cable clamps
3 1/8″ x 6″ turnbuckles.
2 packs of bathtub curtain hanging hooks
2 packs of x-large fabric grommets and installation kit
3 108″ x 15′ muslin backdrops (this was the $$$ killer)
2 90″ x 12′ rayon colored bolts (also pretty pricey)
2 ProFoto reflector umbrellas (also very pricey!)
1 carbon fiber Bogen tripod with Manfroto Q/L ball head (let’s $700 for that bad boy but it’s top-notch!)
1 ‘classic’ steel heavy duty studio tripod (I’ll say it was a lot less than the Bogen)
Several gallons of paint
Many hours of labor to clean, sand, paint and rig.
Also have 5 other ‘consumer grade‘ (i.e. crap) tripods that now just take up space. They are good for travel though, because if they are crushed or lost, I don’t care. I purchased two of them at different times overseas, while on vacation expecting them to not last the 10-14 days there. I considered leaving them but the penny-pincher in me made me pack them home.
None of this is possible without the two Canon 20D bodies, and untold thousands of $$ in lenses. :/
Then there is of course the $$$$$$$ in motorcycles, but they have uses beyond the studio. 🙂
One of these days I’ll fully account for the costs of this hobby! LOL
Having a photo shoot coming up next week, I want to create a couple of new backdrops. The shoot will once again focus on the yellow Ducati. Today I’m working with some rough masks in Photoshop to get an idea of what backdrop colors I should work on creating next.
This will take a few hours to work though. First I’m working on some basic background tinting. Once I get an idea of what my eye likes, I’ll break out my color books (a favorite of mine is the Jim Krause’s Color Index 2) and find tune the pallets looking for the best complimentary colors. Creating the backdrops is not an exact science (at least for me), so having a perfect color target is meaningless. It serves as a goal for dye an base fabric color selection.
These are a couple of the images I’ve created so far to get an idea of what direction to go in.
Saturday, I got great deal on some AVVI rearsets for the Superbike. Adjustable billet Rear Sets have been on my desire list forever. I never did get a set for my 998, and 2 years into owning the 1098, I finally got it done!
The Happy Hour sale at Ducati Seattle yesterday was IMPOSSIBLE to pass up. 60% off! That cut the price of the parts from $400 to $160! That’s hardly more than the cost of replacing the bits with stock parts, perish the though, if it’s crashed. So.. picked them up, had a cheese burger, talked to Marty for over an hour about tuning the bike…. and headed home to mount the parts.
10 minutes later: New AVVI Rear Sets
How, I need to get them anodized to match the rest of my billet parts, such as the clutch cover, pressure plate and my levers: Billet levers.
I also talked to Marty about the advantages of putting in a custom stroker crank. We looked at some dyno graphs for other stroker motors recently built. It really flattens the torque curve. A 916 stroker was cranking well into 80 ft/lb. from 4400 with at table flat profile all the way to 8500! That would be a massive kick in street drivability, and also corner exit acceleration on the track. If I can file $5000 to burn between now and Summer, I can get the crank done, the heads blueprinted and the entire thing custom dyno tuned. Tempting… very tempting.
It’s great to have a world-class dyno facility less than 1 hour away, with a technician that has decades of experience and the professional network that offers the latest in tuning knowledge to be made available to the average consumer, such as myself.
Dave Rosevelt and Ducati Seattle are a world-class operation!
Living with the updated shop.
Follow-up on my first Shop Makeover post.
One of the largest reservations I had about moving the workbench, was the lack of electrical on that side of the garage. Nothing was originally wired there. In fact there are 8 plugs in the shop, 6 of them on the ‘red wall’ side and 2 at the very rear of the shop.
What is the oddest thing about that, is the side of the shop with the main breaker box, there are no outlets!
My buddy Bill to the rescue! About an hour of parts selecting, wire stripping and doing it the right way (I’m sure I would have burned up something or killed myself, I’m a DC wiring guy, not AC), I now have this nifty 4-gang box right on the wall. And with it’s own dedicated breaker to boot. Now I have plenty of power options for the workbench. I’m currently selecting a multi-plug switched gang box to drop off the last connector. No rush, I have the power I need right now. My mini air compressor lives right there in below the box. It had always been a bit of an orphan floating around the shop. How, it has a place (like I said, a place for everything, and everything in it’s place).
For those (few) that asked, this is how the toolbox fit under the workbench. Almost looks like I build the bench around the toolbox, instead of tweaking the toolbox to fit the bench. Either way, I’m SO happy to have the toolbox AND workbench together. So far the tendency to leave tools on the bench and not put them back in the box has been nearly eliminated. As I said before, a man has to know his limitations and eccentricities, and find ways and methods that provide the opportunity to do the ‘right’ things instead of the ‘easy’ things.
Now… the banner.
That banner.
A gracious gift from my friend Mary (THANKS!). It has hung in multiple garages. Originally it was hung on the ‘big red wall’ before I painted it red. Now I have it suspended from the ceiling, via hooks (damn cement wall) along the back wall, covering the natural gas pipes the intrude into the shop.
I was not a big fan after I hung it up, and as time goes on, it’s losing even more favor with me.
So I took it down.
I think it’s less visually distracting without the big banner there. My Porsche banner, well, I plan to keep that. It covers the nasty pipes along the wall, and it does not hang down along the wall like the H&R banner does (did).
For me it works.
This is what the shop looks like this morning. The CLK tucked neatly away, out of the ice (and the soon to be arriving snow). Plenty of room in the shop.
Now I need to work on heating it. That’s been a big issue for me. I used to have a heated shop. I do miss that quite a bit. I’m sure it’s just a matter of getting some good electrical advice. Some space heaters should do the trick in the short term. Sealing up the horribly installed side garage door should also help. Right now leaves (yes leaves!) blow in there, along with the cold wind. One more item on my 2010 Shop ToDo list.
I purchased the house in January 2007. I took this picture on the night I received the keys. The garage looks pretty big in this photo. And in fact it is a nice decent sized tandem garage. Nothing was painted at that point. As you can see, the rear wall is cement. The way it looked when I bought the home.
The first thing I did, before moving anything into the shop was to start priming the walls. Being anxious to get out of the projects I was temporarily renting, I decided that I’d primed enough to move in my junk. And to a large degree junk it is.
The garage remained in this state for about 1 year, before I started to empty out of my storage units and move my crap in with me.
A downward spiral of hoarding, had begun. Shop as it looked after movin (Jan 2007).
First year
Despite my best efforts of my messier side, to clutter things up. It remained pretty clean and organized for the first year following move-in. Here the walls are primed, I have my flag (it flew on my old house the morning of 9/11, I always flew a flag in front of my house), the last of my Porsches and for once very little clutter along the walls. My old 993 in the shop.
After the first 2 years, thing got rather messy
Fast forward two years (February 2009) and this is what it had all degraded too. Stuff everywhere, tools hard to find, boxes of 20 year old paperwork mixed in with cases of chemicals, car parts, books, and miscellaneous… stuff.
In this show I had actually done a significant amount of cleanup, since I was testing out the viability of converting the larger rear section of shop into a photo studio. With a pair of home-made backdrops (thanks to DIY Photography website), and inexpensive halogen lighting it actually worked!
The floor is wet because I mop it from time to time, to keep the concrete dust manageable. It’s really bad. Not sure whey it seems to power up so much. Cars and motorcycles maybe? Don’t know, but it’s less than ideal!
I’d also painted the wall above the garage door, and the stairwell entry. It was a blue I picked up at the store for $5.00 a gallon. Pretty good deal. And it’s really a nice blue. But.. not for the shop. I never finished the cut-in because I was not sure I wanted to keep it blue.
It was not a tough decision to change it, but I didn’t know what I wanted to change it too. White was too boring, dark blue was too dark. So it stayed in that condition until November 2009 when I finally decided on a color that worked for me.
Another one of the steps in the process, was to sell the beast of a motorcycle seen here. It was my KTM 950 Adventure S. A kick-ass machine, but one I seldom used. Basically it was just losing value and I had a fair bit of cash tied up in it. Selling it alone freed up a much of space in the shop.
Underway
Sometimes you have to make a HUGE mess, to start cleaning things up.
This is about 1/3 of the way into the project. By this time I had applied some white cement paint (high traffic formula), taken apart, moved and re-assembled my workbench.
One of the desires I’ve had for years, was to find a way to put my toolbox ‘inside’ the workbench. This does two things for me. One, uses up less wall space. Two, it’s one less flat surface I’m inclined to stack junk on. I’m not the cleanest person by far, but if I put some logistic limitations on myself, I can remain fairly neat and organized. One just has to come to terms with one’s eccentricities and limitations.
Getting my Snap-On toolbox under the bench required a permanent modification to the bench itself. It also required that I remove the wheels from the base of the toolbox so that it would ‘slide’ under the benchtop without me cutting the bench top supports. It’s FAR easier said than done. Removing the wheels was easy. Wrestling the box up inside the confines of the workbench took about 30 minutes.
Storage racks cleared, boxes opened and inventoried, you name it. The process was getting to be pretty intense. At this point piles of things were being relocated in groups around the shop, in order to gain access for painting or cleaning of other spots of the shop.
A failed attempt at application of a red stripe between the grey and white resulted in the rough line seen there. The ‘maximum application time’ suggested for painter’s easy release tape is, as I find in a lot of things (like the weight rating of cheap ladders), actually has some relevance. In this case it’s 2 weeks. And in my case, I left it on longer than that, over-painting the bad Red gloss paint. The Red under the white primer is no longer visible, after countless coats. The buildup of paint on the wall in that area is, impressive?
After completing the upper wall repaint, I moved onto the rear wall. A lot of the junk on the floor was held by the empty shelving unit seen middle photo. Most of it was, actually. But here, things are starting to come together and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is turning out to be worth all the effort.
PAINTED!
Long shot to the back of the shop. Walls painted in the two colors and my big H&R banner hung up. It’s really huge. And it’s a nice high quality banner. However, I’m not loving it. It’s just too big.
I think I’m going to take it down for while and see how I like it without the big banner. Maybe I’ll sell it on CraigsList. Maybe I’ll toss it. Maybe I’ll store it for a future shop at some point in the, uh, future. But I’m pretty sure I’m taking it down for now, at least.
Even the largest of my vehicles fits easily in the reconfigured shop. The proximity of the work bench could be an issue working on doors, but I still have the entire latter 1/2 of the shop I can pull the vehicle into if I need to do that work.
As shown in previous photos, I can fit two cars, three motorcycles and a fair bit of storage all in this ‘little’ shop.
Phase 1 Completed
A place for everything, and everything in it’s place.
For the time being, the motorcycles will live along that wall. When the weather improves I plan to spread them out for easy selection.
The line between the grey and white turned out very crisp, and thanks to the use of the laser, level and very straight.
Patience pays off.
The final result of the wall repaints. The slip cover on that couch has to go. It’s hideous. Not as hideous as the couch fabric it covers (long story there), but it just looks… bad. I think a new red one is in order. There is still too much concrete dust to use black, it would be worse that the denim blue.
Again, the upper / lower sections of the wall show a nice crisp line. Unfortunately that wall is concrete and full of imperfections. At some point I might skin it with 1/4″ sheetrock and repaint. But not this winter.
The choice to repaint that section in the high-gloss gray enamel, made me happy. It looks nice, clean and not so depressingly dark when I walk to the shop. Plus it’s not the same boring white I could have done.
This time I cut in the corners and even painted that section of the ceiling to match. That was partially a test to see if I should paint more of the ceiling in that way. So far I really like it. Not sure how it would play out in the full garage but I’m leaning towards it pretty heavily.
Also in the photo is the aluminum later that almost killed me. Stupid thing collapsed and I fell about 4′ do the cement floor. Luckily I still had a bunch of stuff staged for donation and storage, and that ‘cushioned’ my fall. Cheap Chinese crap ladder. I’m glad I have my real American made ladder back from my friend Colleen (it does not look like it ended up in any of the photos, but I was also not trying to photograph my ladder!).
And finally, the ‘Big Red Wall’. This is actually how the entire project started. I decided to finish painting this wall with primer, then applied the $5.00 gallon of red paint (Lowe’s Clearance Sale) and viola. I was so happy it inspired me to redo the entire shop.
In the back you can see the kickback section of wall, now painted in a sage tone green. This is the same color I painted my kitchen (another $5.00 score I had custom mixed). Frankly, most people that have seen the shop don’t understand my green wall. Tough. It’s my shop. It might see the same white-gray treatment the rest of the shop sees, but I’m going for a bit of a multi-purpose area theme. Mixed shop and video gaming man-cave (60″ plasma and network cabling to follow later).
I have a couch (that slip cover is NOT going to remain… looking for a better looking cover right now) for the space, and a pair of stacking office chairs. I’m also on the hunt for more 50’s era bar / dinner stools like I have upstairs. There is a quirky place right across the street from work that sells random stuff. Next time they get some more I’ll be in there to check them out.
Drain pipes also received a treatment of the gloss gray. I think it’s much less distracting than the black pipe covered with plaster and white paint streaks. They almost look like steel pipes (they are some sort of poly/pvc/plastic).
The next step for me, it taking care of the floor ‘treatment’. Right now I am investigating the costs and utility of installing Martial Arts mats in the ‘pregnant’ section of the shop. The other option is the epoxy paint. Painting would have to wait for summer since it won’t cure in these temperatures.
Not to scale, clearly.All the years I have lived up here, and traveled down I-5 to California, I wondered if this sign, just south of Portland was misleading. It always seemed to take far longer and be far more easterly to take the I-205 bypass around Portland, than the I-5 central route through the city. The sign implies a little extra distance. Reality? Read on.
Here is what the area looks like. Now that you have seen the sign, here are the mapped routes, with mileage. Should the OR DOT be smacked for putting up such a misleading sign? You be the judge.
I-5 Route through PortlandThis time, I decided I had to find out for certain. On the way down I took the I-5 central route through Portland and measured the mileage. As you can see here, the route looks pretty straight, with a little bend just south of the city.
Measuring the distance along I-5 came to 27 miles. Longer than I thought! No wonder why it seems to take forever to get through there, it’s about a 30 minute drive without traffic!
The I-205 Sucker Bet On my return, I took the I-205 bypass, touted as a faster way around the city, and of relatively equal distance. I present this image for you, and the following data.
Clearly, you can see that it’s a MUCH longer route. And the actual path looks, quite different, than the sign suggests.
So, how much of a sucker bet is it? How about 67% longer than the I-5 route?! It’s just a hair over 40 miles!
Traffic would have to be a crawling 30 MPH all the way through and past the city to break even! Now, here is the kicker. When traffic is bad in Portland, it’s just as bad, if not worse on I-205 (been there, parked in that).
So, no matter how you cut it. Unless you are going to the airport, East on OR-84 or WA-4 it’s a sucker’s bet and one you should NOT TAKE!
Traveler beware. The Oregon DOT and that sign LIE!!
On the heels of my first post about what sort of automobiles I’ve owned, and whom I’d purchase from again, I started thinking about the topic in regards to my motorcycles. What has been the top purchaser, what do I enjoy riding most and what would I buy again.
So, here they are ordered by the most frequently purchased brand (the degree of repurchase of Honda shocked me, considering I’m not very fond of them).
My favorite manufacture by far is Ducati. I’ve owned 2, sort of 3. The Cagiva had a 900cc Ducati 2v engine that was really fantastic. I’d still have it if the bike had not been difficult to find parts for, and if there was at least a decent aftermarket.
The big deal for me, for several years has been V-twins.  This is cronology of sorts on which Vtwins I’ve purchased and anything else (italics) non-Vtwin in that timeframe.
2002 Ducati 998
2003 Cagiva Gran Canyon
2005 KTM 950S 1994 FZR400
2001 Honda RC51
2008 Ducati 1098 1974 Kawasaki KZ400 (parallel twin)
2004 Suzuki SV100S
Only one of that least 6 bikes was not a V-twin. And the FZR400 purchase was made because.. well those things are just a hoot, reving 15,000 RPM (pretty high for those days, rather pedestrian, even in the liter bike category), plus it was RARE.  Very fun machine for certain!
So, what might be next? Hard to say. I’ve always wanted to pickup an MV Agusta F4 (in 1000cc trim, might settle for a 750 if the price was right), or maybe that new BMW S1000RR  1/2 because it’s BMW’s first real race-fucused superbike effort.
In the end, I plan to keep buy Ducati bikes, despite the more rigerous maintenance requirements (and costs), because they are just soooooo fun to ride.
What am I most unlikely to ever purchase again. A Honda.  For me, Honda’s have been little more than a stream of problems. Most of them eletrical, but some of them mechanical as well.  The least reliable bikes I’ve ever owned where Hondas, the most reliable, the Ducatis.  Imagine that.
Here is the list of bikes, mainly sorted by most purchased to least, but not in any chronological, displacement or specific age/MY ordering.
The last road block, or so I hope, was breached yesterday when I located the elusive ‘Arm & Hammer Washing Soda‘ at Fred Meyer. I’d tried all the other local establishments but they seemed to be a little too ‘high faluten’ for something as old-school as ‘Washing Soda‘.
In parallel with my quest for the chemical, I have been moving along with the body work on the gas tank. It seems to be a never ending process! I have professional body working sanding blocks and papers, and maybe using high quality products is highlighting every little low spot on the tank.   At some point I just have to relent and realize this is NOT going to be perfect.  I do not have a spray booth, and I can’t use multi-stage paints to get the really professional look.  So, maybe a little imperfection will be OK.
This is what it looks like right now after the 5th round of filling and sanding.
The rest of the low spots on the tank I can live with, but the high-spots where I ground down the mounting studs for the ‘Kawaski’ badge, I won’t leave that way. They will look horrible once the paint is applied. I may have to get in there with the grinder again and make some intentional low spots, fill, sand and move on.
Just fore reference, this is what the badges used to look like on this tank before I started:
Wow.. the first video was interesting, but this.. this was fantastic. Something Europe, looks like Europe.. hard to put my finger on it. Anyhow… this is a shorter but much more engaging clip. Riding on the bridge looked pretty wild!
