Monday, June 9, 2008

Pictures from my Archive… a frequent dip in to photographs that I want to share with you….

0 comments Posted by car 2011 at 5:51 AM

What a job..... talk about green with envy..."The MotorCycle" editor, although it could be George Wilson who was a journalist with them at the time, tests Freddy Frith's 1949 Junior TT winning 350 DOHC works Velocette following the race. The photo was taken up on the mountain road in the IOM where these tests occured....
Left click on the photo to enlarge.
Many of these photos come from sources that still hold the copyright. For example Morton’s Motorcycle Media, publishers of “Old Bike Mart”, “Classic Racer”, “The Classic Motor Cycle” now own many old EMAP publications such as “The MotorCycle” and “MotorCycling”. They are happy for me to publish with due acknowledgement and where not for commercial gain.
Other photographs come from Fox Photos , Keystone Press Agencies and S.R.Keig Ltd.

 

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Saturday, June 7, 2008

An introduction to KTT Services...my business for 25 years.

0 comments Posted by car 2011 at 4:54 AM

This is a short introduction to my business, KTT Services, which specialised in the repair and restoration of motorcycle and to some extent car instrumentation, usually from the past....

This isn't starting anywhere in particular, chronologically, but I've a few of the interesting instruments I built for customers to share with you. In many instances I have had aluminium bodies cast and machined or metal spun, bezel rims spun ( I have over 50 different rim varieties and shapes that I have manufactured and still supply the instrument trade worldwide) , dial faces screen printed and here I do the printing myself from a stock of over 700 different dial types.

Now this dial printing has spawned many "specials" and two illustrate this blog.... the large coloured one was for a customer who walked into my shop...

Talking of my shop, I've included a picture taken by a Japanese customer and judging by my beard colour it was over 10 years ago.....

This customer had a Harley Davidson he had customised with polished aluminium and paint everywhere..he was really into Ned Kelly ( don't know who Ned Kelly was? "Google" the name...an Australian bushranger ..read outlaw..in the 1800's) and wanted the dial face to be him...Ned Kelly used a tin helmet that covered his head, just like in the dial and the pointer of the speedo was covered with a brass etching of a rifle...hmmm.
The other , a set of instruments for a Velocette in Germany, for Velo enthusiast Gert Boll, was for his Metisse Velo special...see the photos... Sadly it caught fire and burnt badly.
Not to be outdone, Gert rebuilt it and I remade new instruments for him....
The Velocette with the speedometer dial was the logo I adopted for my business... it , to me, epitomised what I did... rode Velocette's and fixed speedos.




Left click to enlarge photos.

 

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Thursday, June 5, 2008

Pictures from my Archive… a frequent dip in to photographs that I want to share with you….

0 comments Posted by car 2011 at 4:13 PM

It is my good fortune to have a well stocked library of motorcycling ( and occasional other) photographs and literature and as the current “custodian” I want to ensure they are made available to as many people as possible…so I’m indulging myself on a frequent basis with a pic or two from it….. Look on!….


What to start with.....?
In an earlier blog I described how in Jan.1974 we set out from Sydney to ride overland to Europe to fullfill what had been an ambition of mine, having read many stories of others who had made the same trip in both directions.
In London, another desire was to ride to the English Dragon Rally, held during the winter in Wales and to ride to Germany to the Elephant Rally. Held in mid winter in the Eiffel mountains I'd read reports of it many times. So in Feb.1975, I set out alone ( Judy "Piked out", so I took her sleeping bag as well as my own...), with Jim and Val Day on their R60 BMW, taking the cross channel ferry from Dover to Oostende in Belgium and then by road to the Nurburgring in the Eiffel mountains...boy was it cold riding... -10°C... but woops, I'll save the story for a future blog.
The picture shows us camped at the Nurburgring, bikes beside...my R50/5 BMW has now acquired an Avonaire fairing and the snow shows the weather....
Left click on the photo to enlarge.

 

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