Archive for February, 2007
The 66th Annual Daytona Beach Bike Week begins in just a couple of days. This year Bike Week runs from March 2 to March 11. If you are headed down that way have a great time! Wish we could make it. We tend to hit Biketoberfest in the Fall - it is just a little easier for us to get away then.
Just read a news report on the fact that they are going to be cracking down on loud pipes this year. You hear this every year and there are a lot of folks that get tickets for loud pipes. Just take it easy, try not to show off too much, and don’t go reving it up down main street and you will probably be fine.
Again just becareful and have fun. We would love to see some of your pics when you get back - send them to us and we will gladly post them.
If you can’t make it to Bike Week you can still take advantage of our Bike Week Special, just use the coupon code BIKEWEEK07 at checkout to save 5% on your order of $5 or more.
Take Care - Ride FREE - Have FUN!
Biker Stickers @ ChopperStickers.com
Custom Motorcycle Painting Secrets, Tips, and Techniques
Flame Jobs, Pinstripping, Airbrushing, and more…
Motorcycle Painting Secrets is a step-by-step guide that shows you the inside secrets, tips, and techniques you need to know to paint your motorcycle successfully.
Quickly learn the secrets that professional custom painters have taken years of trial and error to figure out to paint motorcycles with amazing accuracy and creativity. Find out what materials you need, how to set up, how to start, and how to create stunning works of art even if you’ve never picked up an airbrush before.
You’ll learn everything you need to know to paint your motorcycle like a pro and how to set up your paint shop on a shoestring budget!
Quickly learn motorcycle painting tips and secrets:
Here are just of the few things the Custom Motorcycle Painting ebook will teach you:
- Learn how to paint flames - even ghost flames!
- Plans to build your own paint booth.
- Learn how to get a deep, fluid look to your paint job.
- The tools and supplies you will need to start and finish your paint job.
- Learn what steps to take BEFORE you disassemble parts for painting.
- Airbrush and spray gun technique and how to practice.
- And MUCH MUCH More…
You’ll learn everything you need to know so you can paint any kind of motorcycle that comes your way. Even top pro’s will learn a thing two…
This motorcycle painting secrets guide covers all this and much, much more. You’ll get charts that summarize what you’ll need for every step of your project. You’ll get a huge list of common terms and jargon so you know what you’re talking about. You’ll even find get pictures of the finest custom motorcycle paint jobs in the industry!
Save time, money, and aggravation. Discover the secrets the pro’s learned after years of trial and error. Secrets that will help you create show winning creations.
Professional Custom Motorcycle Painting Secrets Revealed!
CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE…
Looking for custom painting supplies? Check out Eastwood Painting, Pinstriping & Custom Art needs - Unique and hard-to-find items!
Some different blogging platforms:
If you want to set up your own on your own server or server space that you lease (hosting account):
- Wordpress
This is my personal favorite (and what this blog is running on). Very easy to install and customize. Take about 5 minute go from no blog to blogging. A very large support community with tons of plugins and themes. Requires PHP and MySQL. - Serendipity
Another great opensource blog. I used this one in it’s early days. Pretty easy to install and use. I have a buddy that uses it on his blog and he really likes it. Looks like the Serendipity Community is also growing a bit. - LifeType
Now I have not uses LifeType in a long while. The project use to be called pLog and it had to change because of now trademark problem or something. It has seen some recent development but the user community is not that large. Still worth looking into though.
Hosted:
- Wordpress.com
Allows you to start your own Wordpress Weblog. Free to sign up for and very easy to use. - Blogger
If you are technically challenged or you are just looking at getting started blogging then check out Blogger. My daughter has her blog here and she has fun with it. It is also very easy to use. - There are hundreds more. Just do a search for free blogging.
March is buffing and metal finishing month at Eastwood. From now, until the end of March, Eastwood is offering 15% Off most buffing supplies - Wheels, Compounds, and more. In addition, they are giving away a FREE motor stand ($39.99 Value!) with the purchase of any Eastwood Buff Motor.
Some love ‘em, some hate ‘em, now ChopperStickers.com has them - Orange County Choppers stickers and decals.
We have 4 different designs in stock now and will be adding a few more designs over the next couple of days so keep checking back.
Take Care - Ride FREE
Biker Stickers @ ChopperStickers.com
We had a great weekend in Ocracoke. It is a great place to just get away and relax, especially this time of year since there is really no one else there.
Saturday we rode bikes around the island and took a good walk on the beach.
I didn’t eat too bad, even though Howard’s Pub is a real temptation (Howard’s hush puppies are awesome). We did eat at Howard’s both nights (it’s the only thing open this time of year) but we did not over do it. I had a fish sandwich on Friday night and a couple of crab cakes on Saturday.
We carried some healthy snacks with us to keep us from going to the convience store and buying a bunch of junk. Some 100 calorie oreo cookie packs, a few oranges, bottled water, and diet pepsi. When we don’t have snacks with us we end up at the general store buying bags of chocolate dounuts. I am digging the oranges and I am almost out, need to stop and pick up some more.
Now it’s back to work and back to the routine. Weighed in this morning and I am still holding steady at 229 lbs. I still have a long way to go but I will get there.
If you do a lot of in-town riding you may find yourself using your clutch ALOT. If your bike is like mine “was” at times you get off and feel like your left forearm is getting one hell of a work out. If so the “Easy Boy” Lite Clutch by White Brothers is what you need.
White Brothers claim that this product reduces the manual effort required to pull the clutch in by 40%. I am not sure what the percentage of improvement was, but I do know that it made the clutch on my 1992 Heritage Softtail much easier to pull.
Installation of the product was very easy and only took about 45 minutes to complete. Here is how it went:
First I removed the exhaust system so that I would have easier access to the transmission cover.
I then drained the transmission fluid and removed the transmission cover.
I disconnected the clutch cable from the coupling and removed the clip from the ball/ramp mechanism. (Watch out here, there are three(3) ball bearings behind the ramp mechanism and if you aren’t careful they will go rolling around the garage floor.)
Next I unscrewed the clutch cable from the transmission cover and removed the small O-ring.
Because I am not running the stock clutch cable I had to use a bench grinder to grind down the “Easy Boy” a bit to fit my cable end, if you have to do this be careful not to take off to much.
The “Easy Boy” Lite Clutch then installs right on the ramp piece with just a nut and bolt. Be sure that the bolt is tight. The instructions suggest about 10 - 12 ft lbs.
There is a spacer that comes with the kit that goes on the end of the clutch cable. Once the spacer is on the O-ring is replaced and the clutch cable can be screwed back into the transmission cover.
Then hook the clutch cable back into the coupler and attach the coupler to the “Easy Boy” Lite Clutch piece which is now bolted to the ramp mechanism. Reinstall the 3 ball bearings and the ramp mechanism and replace the clip.
Here is a picture of what it looks like installed:
Replace the transmission cover. Make sure you replace the transmission cover gasket, also. I suggest using a new one.
Then refill the transmission oil to the correct level.
Replace your exhaust system and adjust the clutch as necessary. Mine only needed a slight adjustment.
I purchased the “Easy Boy” Lite Clutch from Hampton Roads HD in Newport News. Total cost including the “Easy Boy” Lite Clutch Kit, Transmission Oil, and Transmission Cover Gasket was about $30.
The difference was well worth the time and money.
If you are looking to purchase the Easy Boy online you can pick it up at JPCycles.com. (Just search for easyboy on their site.)
Found this little jewel over here. Great step by step instructions to get Microsoft’s new Vista OS up and running in just a matter of minutes. 
Hope you (enjoyed it) learned something.
Western Digital WDXMS1200TN
120 GB Passport USB 2.0 Hard Drive
I was looking for something to securely backup data from my laptop. I had been using a USB drive, which was 1 GB, and it worked fine but it was only 1 GB. I found this 120GB Passport USB Drive from Western Digital.
This little USB Harddrive is a great deal for the price and if you are looking for something with a little more storage (or maybe even a little less) there are others available. The 120GB was just what I needed and the price was right.
One of the things I like most about it is that it give me the ability to work on documents on the drive on another computer and then sync them up on my laptop. I don’t have to lug my laptop everywhere (even though I usually do).
One draw back is the encryption and syncronization software (WD Sync) that comes preinstalled on the drive only works with Windows.
The drive is USB powered so there is no power supply or special power cable to deal with and it comes with a USB cable.
I liked the one that I was using on my laptop so much I bought a second one to hang off my server to just drop things onto for safe keeping.
Western Digital WDXMS1200TN 120 GB Passport USB 2.0 Hard Drive
Click Here to Buy from Amazon.com
From the Western Digital:
“High-performance portable storage for your Mac and PC. Light and rugged, it’s easy to carry and no external power adapter is needed. Comes with sync & encryption and Google software.
Pack up your office files and take them home. Carry thousands of songs or pictures. These drives are simple to use, light and easy to carry, and require no power adapter–they are powered directly through the USB cable.”
If you are looking for a portable and secure alternative to a USB Thumb Drive this gadget is worth a look.
Buy the Western Digital 120 GB Passport USB Hard Drive from Amazon.com
Most of the website design and editing I do, I do by hand using a text editor such as vim or notepad even but occassionally, especially if I am trying to lay out tables, CSS, or image maps (I hardly ever mess with image maps but sometimes) HTML Kit is an excellent tool to help with these tasks.
HTML Kit Screenshot
HTML Kit allows you to preview the output of your code as you edit. It is also very useful in planning site layout. There are a ton of plugins available for HTML Kit to automate just about any coding tasks.
The built in validation tools are also nice. (Probably should use them more often).
From the authors site:
HTML-Kit is a full-featured editor designed to help HTML, XHTML and XML authors to edit, format, lookup help, validate, preview and publish web pages. Despite its name and the light download size, HTML-Kit is a multi-purpose tool that has support for several scripting and programming languages.
Again if you are looking for a great FREE web development tool download HTML Kit and give it a try: http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
