well, it's a motorcycle

[42barab]

Steve

This is truly rolling art!  H-D produced some gorgeous machines back then, and you've brought one of them back to life, saving a little bit of history in the process.  On ocassion, a local gentleman shows off his 29.  Can't take my eyes off it when he shows up.  And to Gerard's comment about the notched tank, I think Moto Guzzi did likewise in recent history.  Were they putting a bigger engine into a smaller existing frame, or trying to keep the profile, and the c.o.g. low?  Thanks for sharing.

[Steve Swan]

Steve

This is truly rolling art!  H-D produced some gorgeous machines back then, and you've brought one of them back to life, saving a little bit of history in the process.  On ocassion, a local gentleman shows off his 29.  Can't take my eyes off it when he shows up.  And to Gerard's comment about the notched tank, I think Moto Guzzi did likewise in recent history.  Were they putting a bigger engine into a smaller existing frame, or trying to keep the profile, and the c.o.g. low?  Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for asking.  The early engine's on the first motorcycles manufactured are very tall.  The inlet over exhaust design (IoE) puts the exposed inlet pushrod valve levers high, so for a number of early motorcycle manufacturer's, as tanks got wider to hold more gasoline, the right hand tank had to be "notched" out to accommodate the design.  The IoE design was the first valve configuration to be used on motorcycle engines in the late 1890's, and was invented by Frenchman Albert Dion, and Georges Bouton. 

[42barab]

Steve, I realize we're a bit off course here from Sandcasts, but we are discussing bikes with historical relevance.  There's a local museum, Motorcyclepedia, where they display a host of early (1900 - 1930) machines representing many of the manufacturers that existed then.  Pope, Cleveland, H-D, Indian, and many more.  One feature they all seem to share is an engine that appears similar to the basic Dion/Bouton design.  I've been told that "borrowing" was very common.  Must have been before copyright and patent infringement was an issue.

[Steve Swan]

Steve, I realize we're a bit off course here from Sandcasts, but we are discussing bikes with historical relevance.  There's a local museum, Motorcyclepedia, where they display a host of early (1900 - 1930) machines representing many of the manufacturers that existed then.  Pope, Cleveland, H-D, Indian, and many more.  One feature they all seem to share is an engine that appears similar to the basic Dion/Bouton design.  I've been told that "borrowing" was very common.  Must have been before copyright and patent infringement was an issue.

yes, "borrowing ideas" before these ideas were patented was pretty much standard in the early days, but patent infringement and lawsuits were very real and killed various marques.  in H-D's case, continuing to use patented idea that H-D as well as other motorcycle manufacturer's paid for in the early days, damn near killed the company and because H-D came up with a near identical design of their own and because the violated party not only wanted to take over H-D, they wanted to drive H-D into extinction, and re-brand what Bill Harley and the 3 Davidson brothers had created.  As part of the US Supreme Courtt decision, H-D paid out $25 million in 1924 dollars (nearly $358 million in today's dollars) to the offended party - https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/259/414/case.html

anyway, yes we are a bit off course from anything sandcast........  i doubt it's like what we are infrequently discussing will divert or dilute our interest in things sandcast, or destroy  SOOC.  if so, there's always sandcast facebook for those who are looking for instant gratification.