Aermacchi Fork Mods // Paul Brodie's Shop 

Your safety comment were level headed and to the point. Thank you for not throwing a fit and calling everyone names :)

Paul, tip from the Netherlands; chalk your file before it is used. The chalk get's into the bottom of the grooves so no metal can stick there. Rinse and repeat during the use of the file. Cleaning the file becomes much more easy that way. Especially on soft metals like aluminum. I use a piece of brass to clean my files because I experienced it works quicker and also on residues of steel or stainless steel. Another tip; use a candle to grease your bandsaw or circular saw when cutting aluminum. It prevents the clogging of the teeth and cuts faster. Thank you! Best, Job

Love your vids!

The safest thing i always see you do, is you're never in a hurry, and you think through what you're doing. And you keep a nice clean work space. That eliminates a lot of room for accidents. I really enjoy your videos. Thanks Paul and Mitch for taking the time to share.

Hah, you hit my memory button twice. First, my phone call to Yoshimura about my '78 Suzuki GS 1000, and second, re-valving forks on same by welding up holes and drilling new......following a set of drawings and instructions from a friend and they looked just like yours. Still have that bike, but mostly just look at it now...

Boy you are a master of what you do. I have only cringed at 1 episode where I thought of your safety, and that was when you machined brake linings without a respirator. You had stated in the video that the linings may have asbestos in them. Having had several friends die of mesothelioma, it is the one thing that really frightens me. I am missing bits of fingers, burned myself and lost my fair share of skin to rotating devices. Fortunately, as our friends from Monty Python would say "its only a flesh wound". Thank you for what you and Mitch do Paul. I am learning so much. A coffee will be coming soon.

As an old Jeweller, it was nice to see that you clean your file as we were taught to clean our hand files. Only difference being that we'd use scrap brass, most likely because brass is always within Jewellery workshops.

I'm not really into bikes, but I am into quality and passionate workmanship. PB is the kinda dude you could chat to forever and not be bored. This channel is legit amazing, thank you for the free awesome content. Everyone should shout you and Mitch a coffee.

All the years and the hundreds of forks I have replaced seals in there is still something to learn! I especially like the toothbrush on a stick to clean inside the lower fork tube! Thanks,Paul!

this channel is my favourite new discovery

My rule of thumb is: If the machine you’re running can pull a glove into it, don’t wear one. Use clamps (not gloves) to hold material firmly while you drill etc. Gloves may help you hold a piece of sheet metal at the drill press, but they won’t do anything to prevent that piece from getting picked up by the drill, spinning around, and lacerating your torso wide open. Proper work holding prevents so many of these injuries whether large or small. In almost all cases, the gut feeling of wanting gloves (specifically on a machine where they’re dangerous) is a big red flag that you could be making other (better) safety improvements instead

Mitch anticipates well and always seems to get just the right shot.

I always liked the old MG motto - Safety Fast!

Paul, I agree with you about have hard and fast "rules". Of course there has to be some direction but judgement has to rein, as you pointed out. It's hard with a student because you have to point out the hazard and how to manage it but at an early stage , there isn't the experience built that becomes part of good judgement. So it depends on a person's relative experience. Like you, there are sometimes I will not follow the established "rule" but sometimes stick to it fastidiously. It's so dependent on experience. And for what it's worth, I've seen all kinds of little tips that are safer ways than I am used to, so good job on that. :)

Paul, you've done your entire career work with weld equipment, drill press, band saws, lathes you name it. You know when to be cautious and when you can give some leeway. The fact that you don't weld all day long and when you do, you apparently use oxyacetylene and tig mostly, there's not really that much sparks flying around. Radiation isn't even that big of an issue. But still, the people bashing you for not wearing a face shield all day, gas mask when brazing or gloves when doing any operation whatsoever, have probably done one bicycle worth of work during their entire life. It's just the type of person that gets triggered by someone not doing exactly what they expect.

I’ve only recently discovered all your amazing videos. I love them, the techniques and your easy style of presentation. My interests are identical to yours. I’m a former late 60’s and early 70’s motorcycle racer and, most recently a classic racer on a 1968 replica 350/4 Benelli. I’m a self taught motorcycle ‘engineer’ with no formal qualifications. My shop has the basic lathe, drill press, bandsaw, MIG welder etc etc, just enough to keep me busy. I’ve done quite a bit on all aspects of motorcycle engineering, especially on forks. Watching this video, I was perplexed when, at the final stage, you found the fork springs were too long and opted to ‘shorten’ them. The original springs would have had a rate of about 40 ft/lbs. but cutting 2” off them would have significantly increased the spring rate (as the overall length and wire diameter is what determines the rate). You probably know that, but I was surprised you made no mention of that change. If you’d measured the spring rate of the cut off part it would have been astronomical, not a very short 40 ft/lb spring. Keep up the great work, I’m very impressed indeed!

One year...thanks Paul and the enigmatic Mitch...

I use those yellow ear plugs always when I'm working too 😁

Paul, the TRS trials bike in the background Is talking to me & it wants to go outside for a run. How about a video of you relaxing and taking her for a ride. 👍

i'm going to bet that most peple with strong opinions on safety don't, or only rarely, use machine tools. i was always taught to never wear gloves with fast rotating machinery, for obvious reasons. but i agree with your assessment, i sometimes use thin gloves on the lathe/mill. and they've saved me from injury a few times. i think it's far more important to be fully focused.

I very much enjoy your bicycle work but when you add an internal combustion engine to the mix it elevates my interest many orders of magnitude. Thank you to Mitch and yourself for the time you take to share your work.

Gloves always a hot topic.

Looking good

Teaching myself to weld. Now l need a lathe, then a mill. What have l done. Hah. Signed ; 22 yrs. Retired AFM, CCS.

Thanx for the video . 😀

Lovely work, she’s coming on a treat.

Love the vids. A tip from dirt bikes, leave the damper retention screw At the bottom loose but not totally removed. Then use the fork slider to pop the seals out the amount of space you created loosening the screw., like a slide hammer.

Servicing seals. I forgot the Betor units had two seals, kinda nasty. On Japanese machines, it was easiest from the git-go to collapse the seals by driving the body inward with a screwdriver, much as you had to do with a punch getting the outer portion broken free. Very little strain and damage to the slider grooves. High praise for your work on these forks.

Another great video. Thanks for sharing with us. Dan

Paul, you are amazing! Thank you for the content.

Nice! Starting to come together nicely🤠

Beautiful looking bike, really coming together. Your stuff just looks right - “if it looks right, it is right”. Thanks Paul (and Mitch). Les in UK

Another GREAT video Paul. I've rebuilt a lot of forks over the years but never cut any down or modded to that extent. I think I would feel comfortable now. I work in the industrial maintenance field and our company has gone bat shit crazy with the whole safety first crap. I appreciate the safety third aspect more than you realize. Like you I am very safety minded in not only what I am doing in the shop but what I am building and knowing it will need to be safe for me and especially my son but sometimes the safety police that have never done anything but type on a keyboard get annoying to listen to. Keep the videos coming Paul. Thoroughly enjoying them and your approach to things. Mike

I absolutely love the little tips and hints that come from your experience! Learned three new things from your video. A socket slide hammer? Genious! Looking forward to more!

Love the trick at 22 minutes with the emmery paper and battery drill - take of a few "thou"

Your bike is really looking good Paul.

Always a pleasure watching your videos!

I really enjoyed this episode. So much good work condensed in a 35 minutes video 😊✌️

Happy birthday to this Channel! A year offering great knowledge in all your videos. Thanks for all this year, I really learned so much about fabrication watching this videos. Now, let's go for a coffee 😉

Nice work 👌👍.. Ich bin jedesmal begeistert

Thanks guys you made my morning! When it comes to motorcycles I'm self taught too, and learning more all the time, especially when there's great content like this to pick up some good tips! Never Stop Learning

Some of your best editing yet Mitch. Very nice. I enjoyed the music too! Keep it up boys!

Anything that has something spinning is a no go for gloves! Tig welding small things without gloves, fine in my books.

Use your propane torch on the outside area of lower leg where the seals are. They generally pop right out.

I'm loving this build. Thanks for sharing.

Like always....thank you and Mitch for the jobs you do. Very nice to the eye my friends 😎⚙💯❤🤜🤛

Tis comin along nicely.

Lovin the Motorcycle video!! Your an awesome fabricator Paul it shines through in everything you do... Didnt mean to rhyme lol

Thanks Paul. I'm probably a bit late to the party on your comments about safety but I think you're absolutely right about what's needed for different scenarios. I used to work at an aluminum foundry cutting runners off aluminum castings with a band saw and used to wear gloves. The reason I wore gloves in that scenario was to stop myself from getting spiked by the sharp end of the pour on the runners. Turns out this ended up being a mistake and I learnt my lesson. We were using very coarse blades for this job and the end of my glove got caught on the blade and it sucked my thumb into the blade and ripped (not cut) the end of my thumb open. It was extremely painful. There was a lot of blood and I was lucky it wasn't worse than that. I'm not sure whether this was because of lack of training but I sorta think back on that scenario and think maybe I should have been using something like a push stick or we should have taken the time to knock of the pour spikes.

Brilliant work sir.

“The safety police, they live inside of my head The safety police, they come to me in my bed The safety police, they're coming to arrest me, oh no...” - Cheap Trick

A tube on the floor to throw the damper tube down makes a great slide hamm... like you just said.

Very satisfying! Your channel has turned out to be a great COVID project!

Congrats on a year of youtube. I can say I have enjoyed watching them all. Must be time to buy you gents coffee again.

Agree 100% about gloves usage

Amazing job!!! If someday you need custom spring for your motorcycle forks near my house has a custom springs workshop. From rc shocks springs to bike fork springs. Not recommended for rear shocks but last forever on forks. I order one pair for my Marzocchi Monster in 1999 and after 22 years springs still in perfect shape.

You are a living Legend. I love your style! I wish I could be your apprentice... You really show that all of this stuff while not being very easy, it ain't rocket science. Stuff can't just be made by big companies with hundredths of engineers. Everyone with the right knowledge and skills can do amazing stuff. I really hope that some day I will have a shop with a lathe and a mill... You inspire me to be more and do more. Thank you for making these videos!

What is the source for the fork mods. Air Machee club ?, your racing development? Fellow racers? No mention of spring lb rate ? Your weight,? and how about your fork oil weight?, cc amount ? Your right, not many out here racing Air Machee 's so all of this quite esoteric. Its your machine shop skills that are the attraction here. Fantastic. Work safe. It just takes 1 second to loose a finger, an eye, your life. Great channel 👍👍 CD in New Hampshire Bikes I've raced: Norton Commando Yamaha TA125 Honda MT125 Yamaha TZ250D Moto Morini 350 Sport Laverda 1000 3C Ducati 250 Desmo Sport Corsa Laverda 750 SFC Kawasaki 600 Ninja BMW R69 kneeler sidecar

Sometimes a drywall screw screwed into the seal will give more purchase to remove the seal Ciao, Ferodo Vasilini

Proper clamping of material on any operation saves accidents....stuff spins pretty fast on a drill press.. Usually gloves are a no no on most tools...as you risk grabbing...long sleeves too ( your lathe use ) are also not recommended...but being safe is easy to forget till you get whacked...

Congratulations on the year milestone Mitch and Paul! I appreciate your safety discussion and I'm certain that you know what you are doing with regard to safety. That comes from years of experience and I'm sure some wise mentors as well. The comment section on RU-vid can be entertaining, but please don't give those voices (including mine!) too much sway.

You're not supposed to use gloves on spinning equipment, that said, I wear gloves with bench belt sanders because I've bumped my knuckle against the belt too often. It would probably be a better idea just to hold your part with pliers or something.

When I clean a file, I just use a small brass brush. The brass should be soft enough not to damage the hardened tool steel and it just gets so much easier into a lot of grooves at once.

Remembering the handlebars is a good skill to hold on to.

That was a fun vid. Your far more polite about setting a good example but I guess people are too dumb to think of consequences re wearing gloves or not? Personally, I wouldn't hold fork leg near the oil seal housing, they distort way too easy. I always found it better to hold across the axle boss as it's solid and flat sided. It does mean you have to either have tube upright or supported if laying down so it doesn't pivot. Heating top makes seal removal easier although the metal seals 'always' stick (even when 'new>3 yr old') Most Japanese bikes over 400cc from late 60's through early 80's use 35mm fork tubes so real easy to find, even Harley Davidson used them on Sportsters for years. They will usually be much heavier than Betor though with about 4mm wall thickness Motorcycle fork tubes are made from a carbon spring steel. Some places that repair industrial hydrualic cylinders can re-chrome and grind to size although it doesn't seem to be common any longer? I've made a lot of hydraulic piston rods , it's hard on tooling cutting through the chrome but more practical than grinding it off in most cases, particularly on larger diameters. The bottom out cone you removed at the start should be mated to the internal alloy piece and give a progressive hydraulic lock as forks near maximum travel - last 1.5 inches or so

Molto interessante, buon lavoro fatto i tuoi video sempre molto interessanti e istruttivi.....

15 years in fab plenty of accidents experienced and observed I am a no glove guy on press as I clamp everything but if I had a bandsaw not sure because of sharp wood or steel. Handles on files around lathes is important though if not that can end bad as can straps of emory cloth on lathes arm over bed etc.

I lost my pinky on a bandsaw because the blade caught my glove 🧤. You won’t see my leather hands in gloves 🧤. But again like Paul said. It’s personal preference.

Use some heat on the fork seals....it will loose up any rust/corrosion or steel against alum issues....plus expand the alum ...

Love you

Excellent work! Flexible conduit gland preload 🤦‍♂️

About safety equipment, sometimes it perverts injuries, sometimes it causes the accident and injury. Sometimes it lessons injury and it can focus engery to a point like the neck resulting a quadriplegic young man who was waiting in a parking lot exit for an opening in traff . He was hit from behind by a driver using a cellphone at normal parking lot speed. Broke his neck. Had he not been wearing a full coverage helmet he would not been injured at all . It was the mass of the helmet that broke his neck. I always wear a helmet. It is a lightweight model. The only safety equipment that always helps Is sitoestional awareness, every environment must be evaluated continuously in other to stay safe. I started riding motorcycles in 1964 and I worked with all manner of dangerous equipment I still have all my fingers, some of them have sustained damage.

chalking the file prevents most pinning and what pinning does still happen is easier to card out

PS: the Aermacchi racers are one of my all time favourite race bikes of that era!

good idea on how to clean a file Alum is soft

In the drill press and the lathe I after some near misses used thin gloves that shred if caught,,,used to b a professional guitarist so dirty fingers were to avoid....

hey paul for the seals you can use a open-ended-wrench ( in the case of my mtb a 15mm ) I always thaught of suspension as verry deliate and sensitve and the slightest scratch will damage them, but seeing you punding out that seal with a pimch made me laugh😂 and seeing 30mm stancions on a dirtbike-fork made me go🤯 because my mtb has 35mm and a normal dh-mtb has 40 , so those with all that weight and power must be quite flexy or extremly heavy 😱

👏👌

11:10 I think I would've put a few weld tacks on it and hopefully it would shrink a little. Or tack a washer or something to it that you can tap with a rod through the hole in the bottom on the fork leg.

I have seen a guy get sucked into a big drill press when his glove got tangled in swarf. He would have cut (mildly) without the glove, but been better off in my opinion.

I've seen people caught up in drill presses I've been caught up in drill presses I do not use gloves when I'm drilling a hole or when I'm TIG welding I do however use gloves running any type of Saw my personal preference it's like wearing a wedding ring I seen a guy get his knuckle skint to the tip of his finger because of a wedding ring I do welding fabrication for a living and do not wear any any jewelry

A safe perspective on safety. I doubt you've kept all your bits and pieces through luck alone.

👍👍😎👍👍 Paul, you make it look easy...... 😜

Saudações do Brasil seus vídeos são muito interessantes sou super fan do seu canal no RU-vid parabéns; se puder colocar legenda em português seria ótimo 👍. Grande abraço.....

Great!, enjoyed this very much. Is there a specific video when you built the frame?

My attitude to health & safety has always been that the more obviously dangerous a job is, the more carefully you approach it and the safer it becomes. Wear all the gloves and goggles and so on and you start to feel invincible... Also I never wore gloves because you can't feel what you're holding. And goggles would steam up, so I couldn't see. 59 years of wood butchering, most of those professionally and nothing more than the occasional little knick. Most of those from tools that are considered safe. Tape measures! Release that lock, the blade flies in and if your finger is touching the edge... Bottom line is that you are your own health & safety officer. Make your own decision. Anyway, entertained and educated, as ever. Thanks.

Thanks for the videos. I'm also a safety third guy. Ive always thought that if safety was really first we couldn't use tools or be in a workshop, or even drive to work.

With the drill press and freehand drilling I've had more scares not having a good way to resist the torque than using gloves. If the part can't spin, it can't grab you, gloves or not.

On the subject of safety, I expect you to wear a fluorescent high-visibility jacket at all times, preferably self-inflating to prevent accidental drowning. Don't forget to use the proper hand signals when making turns around the workshop, you don't want anyone to bump into you by mistake.

Paul, have you ever considered fitting some cartridge fork internals into those vintage forks?

Risk assessment!

Okay, you certainly got me with the aluminium billet to clean the file! How do you clean aluminium from your files? I preload wax onto my files to try to minimise the clogging, then I occasionally use copper to do what you showed, except on my bastard cut files... we just lose them...

Heat the old seal, it’ll come out.

Hey Paul! When do you add the fork oil back in? I was curious about oil weights and volumes

Was watching the front hub vids and I have a question. Why dont you mill down the casting parts inside(the round ctlinders) to help reduce weight as well.

These look good but I have a question, did you block all the damper oil passages? What comes to my mind is that since you reduced (deleted??) the oil passages the new gasket that you put doesn´t have the strength of the metal ring and it may start to leak faster. I am thinking of reducing the size of the ones in my forks and I hadn't consider brazing, 👍.

Why not use a chamfering bit with your rotary chuck? Easy to do once it’s chucked

I bought some Ceriani Forks some years ago. Dont know much about them. Wondering if you know best type of bike to use on. Originally looking to build a Cub with them?

Anyway, stop messing around with engine plates with holes that big for an induction tube. A supercharger in there would add enormous amounts of structural integrity. So is a totally logical progression. ;))

I have noticed you use the original style bearings in the steering head. Is there a reason why you don't use taper bearings? After I converted a couple of my Kaw triples to them I use them in everything now. Easier to assemble and the steering is much more stable. Especially at Bonneville.