rise and fall - a wasp tale

While working on that rowboat project a couple weeks ago,
I discovered a little wasps nest.
Typically I'll brush them away,
basically destroying their little hovels.
Those things have stingers and they seem vicious right?

san diego paper wasp

This time was different,
as the nest was easy to reach.
I picked it off and noticed it was full of tiny little amber eggs.
Dang it.
How could I destroy a little baby wasp crib?
I'm the convenient environmentalist type,
and can appreciate the ecosystem thriving in our backyard.
We've got tons of random butterflies, bees, ladybugs, june bugs,
birds, flies, wasps, big ole orb weaver spiders...
Peaceful to watch from the back stoop.

wasp nest

A couple minutes later,
the wasp flew to the spot the nest should have been,
and hovered around the area for a good couple minutes.
It reminded me of a parent looking for her kids.
Shoot.
I ended up gluing the nest to a piece of wood,
and placed it close to where it had been.
We watched as the wasp found it and went through each hole,
checking on the brood.

wasp nest back side

Here's where the story gets a little skewed.
Another little wasp nest was found in the boat.
(except for the top pic these photos are unrelated to this part of the story!)
Time for an experiment.
Since the glue was out,
I attached the little nest to the side of the first nest.
When the first wasp found it,
there was a little double take,
but it still checked in each hole.
Even the strangers eggs.

paper honey comb

Wouldn't you know it,
but a half hour later the second wasp came looking for it's missing nest.
How it found the spot over 20 feet away is still a mystery.
This nest was hidden and maybe it was resting on it when we moved the boat.

Ok here's where the tale turns to the dark side.
Out of curiosity we slowly moved the glued nest to the second wasp spot,
carrying along with it wasp #1.
The kids and I watched as the wasp #2 flew near the nest,
and wasp #1 went in protector mode,
buzzing its wings and then flying this crazy attack maneuver.

I realized that these wasps were actually intelligent.
They had location memory and parental skills.
As the weeks passed,
instead of destroying each nest we found,
we learned to co-exist.
Even though the wasps looked menacing,
they tended to keep to themselves.

wasp vs spider

Fast forward a couple weeks.
The wasp population was obviously growing.
Many nests were spotted and ignored...
Until...
Yesterday.
I'm in the garage and what flies in but this giant wasp.
The queen?
No this one was carrying something.
It lumbered up to it's nest,
and I was shocked to see it had a huge Orb Weaver spider in its grasp!
The killer was stuffing the spider body into the hole!
Oh no.
You don't screw with our orb weavers.
Our front yard is usually full of intricate webs,
and they greet us every morning and night.
I love the methodical building and the patient way they hunt.
The spiders have really neat markings and colors,
and they grow to be quite large.
But not this year!
All of a sudden I had one of those revelations,
like the end of Fight Club or that "I see dead people" movie.
Holey Chit,
we've been breeding spider killers!

mud wasp nest

The kids and I went on a search and destroy mission.
Within half an hour all the nests were taken down.
There were way more than I had thought.

hack carpentry hiding wasp nest

My hack carpentry work of that shed had hidden two wasp hives
In each corner the nests were easily 10 inches long,
and buzzing with wasps.

hidden wasp hive

These were tough to get.
Check out this fat wasp baby!
No wonder there haven't been many spiders out this summer.
Dang it!

fat wasp larva

So much for our natural bug ecosystem!
We had to balance the playing field.
Hopefully the spider population will bounce back...

TP

racing the wasp

I hadn't heard from Mark (and wife Kathy)
about their sidecar race in November.
For some reason my head was spinning negatively.
did the motormounts break?  did the brake tabs fall off?
did one of them get injured?
Maybe this comes from having children.
I don't know.

(If you don't remember his 70's  WASP MX Sidecar with the kawasaki 650,
here's the link to the "build".)
perich brothers (and sister): wasp

Anyway as typical of a concerned parent,
they were out having the
 "best fun we have had in a while".
Kids....

Mark and Kathy testing my welds
Jumping on a Wasp MX Sidecar

What can I say but "Holy Chit"!
I'll have to say Mark is a lucky guy,
his wife definitely gets a top ten coolest wife award!

right turn
Wasp motocross sidecar

left turn
Wasp motocross sidecar

Looks like Kathy has the sidecar "english" covered.
A lot of work controlling these things.

hold on!
Mark and Kathy Wood
70's Wasp MX Sidecar 

Hopefully they get good enough to have sponsors.
A "perich" sticker would look good on it,
or maybe some jerseys...

3

They had such a blast that another one is getting shipped from england.

race MX sidecar

He found a KTM 550 2-stroke for this rolling sidecar project.
I think they might like the extra suspension travel.

c-ya!

So this old Wasp will go into show duty.
Good to know it can still hold it's own.

TP

Wasp MX Sidecar - runs!

Mark's been powering out on his Wasp sidecar project.
Basically it's changed from a project to a running bike, or trike.
He's been battling electrical issues and finally won.

Wasp MX sidecar w/kawasaki w650 engine

Of course he only sent me one picture!

I really like the (almost) finished look of it.
The frame was originally nickeled with a bad coat of primer over it.
He scrubbed it off and it really looks cool,
especially with the aluminum fenders and custom stuff he let me build!
He said the engine is loud but its quick and sounds like a Triumph.

He and his wife Kathy have been tuning it up,
practicing for the race in November .
(i think at willowsprings, I'll edit this if I find out more)

It's always good to see a project progress and not stall!
Click the WASP link below if you want to see what it started like.

TP

blasted - tnuom repilac ekarb tnorf

Mark brought over a small project for the Wasp Sidecar.
Let's do a "Liar's Club".
First person to figure it out gets a free trip to our TJ dentist.

detailed instructions

He always has detailed instructions.
I could tell he spent some time figuring this out.

tnuom repilac ekarb tnorf

After welding,  I tried bead blasting it,
it kinda made it look like a cast piece.

back side

I think it will look better installed!


TP

little boxes

Remember the Wasp sidecar?
Well it's gone and Mark is hustling to get it running,
and good for me he's got a couple extra projects.

scale drawings

It's funny cause it is very rare that I get to build anything from a detailed scale drawing,
with actual measurements, on paper.
Seriously I can't remember the last time.
I'm still thinking.

chindaderas

The scale drawings were from a design viewpoint,
not a builder's viewpoint,
so none of the measurements really worked.
That's typical of almost every project with scale drawings,
 even autocad versions.
It's hard to compensate for the bending and cutting tool gaps.
Fortunately he had brought a large piece of aluminium.

2-d vs 3-d

This is the battery box for the wasp.
Kinda fancy.

aluminum battery box

My brother like's making boxes.
It's tricky to make things square.

finished

I found out I need to practice my aluminum TIG welding.
It has a 70's Linde look to it,
so I guess it fits the era of the bike!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++




ok if you need help,
this girl will translate.




it will sound like this...





Doh vstrey cheh!

TP

bzzzt ... bye bye wasp

The Wasp has finally left.

wasp mx sidecar 

For the amount of work done to it,
I was a little slow.
Each project was intricate enough that it wasn't quick cut and paste work.
Fortunately Mark found an event to enter which lit the fuse a bit.
Deadlines always help!

kawasaki w650 engine

So where was I since the last update...

After making the brackets for the master cylinder and rear caliper,
the next thing was modifying the foot brake pedal.
Its hard to see in the picture but that is good,
it was a retweaking of an original.
At least the positioning is right!

The exhaust was fun.
It started out with this unrelated stainless donor that had the perfect bends.

donor exhaust

The tricky part was figuring out how to clamp it to the engine.
The original used a couple shims with a bolt on clamp.
Mark wanted a different method.

double ring

Basically it's 2 flat washer/rings.
One presses on the copper gasket and the other is for the clamp.
very time consuming whittling those rings out of stainless!

exhaust clamped

It seems like a sturdy design and less prone to leaking or loosening.
The clamps can slide off the other end if needed.

almost equal

The idea of the pipes was to have them as equal length as possible.
Tricky when its on opposite sides of the bike,
so that's why that dip is there.
Still about 3" short.
The pipes were forced into the V shape of the Wasp muffler,
so there weren't too many variables without changing the muffler clamp angle.

front view

I'm sure it will be fine,
at least it matches the other angles of the side car.


Another fun part was this foot grip for the base.

castellated

I had searched for some designs on other Wasps,
and came up with this.

forward gription

The rider or monkey has to move all around the side car,
from way forward on this corner leading edge to the other side behind the driver.
Crazy.

rear gription

Oh yeah.
One of the last things was reangling the top handbar.

workbench

That was one of the harder things

as we don't have a bender that will bend tight 90's out of thin wall tube.

I ended up using the bends I had cut out of the original handle,

but it came out good enough.

WASP MX  sidecar rear view

That was one of the relieving things on the bike.
Nothing had to be show,
it was better if it had a 70's race bike theme,
since that's what it is.
Not arc-weld out in the pits type work,
but not unrealistically restored either.

sidecar view

So the cool thing is Mark and his wife Kathy (C?) are planning on racing this together.
It seems like there might be an issue on whose the driver and whose the rider!
(she rides horses and he's actually been the sidecar monkey during races)

I hope they get it running soon enough to get some practice time.
The plan is to get it running for the race this november,
than blow it apart and clean it up.

wasp and happy owners Mark and Kathy

So this left last Monday.
It was there long enough that its strange having the shop space open again!

Thanks guys for the project!

TP

stool time VI - trifecta

Been gettin some stool time lately...

hurtlocker truck

I've really got to make a separate post for the hurtlocker truck's progress.
Its farther than this.
This post is about the stool!

cadillac flathead

Started cleaning up the casting slag on the flathead for tres huevos...

painted firewall

This firewall is all welded and no primed with some thick epoxy.

wasp sidecar

Also trying to wrap up the Wasp Sidecar project for Mark.
Doing the exhaust now.

kawasaki w650 engine

Trying to get them semi tuned with matching lengths,
or close at least.

That's it for stool time over here!

TP

stool time - wasp sidecar update

Here's a quick update on that Wasp Motocross Sidecar.

wasp

Yep that's it all done.
Well its gonna look the same in the dark.

I've been chipping away at it little by little.

Wasp MX sidecar project

I started by cutting out some aluminum floorboards.
They're not filed nice yet,
and they'll also get a bunch of holes so dirt and rocks will fall through.

shiny floorboards

Next was getting the engine situated.
It was trickier than I thought,
just to line the engine up correctly.

kawasaki w650

The Wasp frame was originally setup for a Kawasaki 750,
but now its a newer Kawasaki W650.
I'm not sure how similar the frame tabs are in correlation to the each engine,
but the mounting plates needed some radical angles.

motormounts

These are definitely overkill.
It's 1/4" stainless plate but the tabs are only 1/8".

crude but effective

There's alot of room for shaping.
It is a race bike so maybe some lightening holes would be cool.

rear mounts

The rear mounts had slight jogs in them.
It's hard to say whether it would have been better to redo the tabs,
but since the frame is nickeled it would add more finish work.

With the engine mounted the exhaust can be designed.
Later on I'll probably remove everything and buff it all out.

Oh yeah,
also started on the brake system.
Mark had found a donor foot pedal.

donor pedal

Not much could be used as it intersects with the starter pedal.
The lever also doesn't line up with anything.

brake system started

I didn't realize until cutting that everything is brazed on this frame.
It's a fat braze weld bead.
The MC bracket is tigged on but I'm considering doing a braze over it
just to keep it original styling.

progress

If I can just get everything to 80% at least,
than Mark can choose what he wants to be further refined.
At this point its good to have the work hours a bit more focused on necessity.

twin shock front end

The next little job is hooking up the steering dampener.
You may see it poking underneath the tank.
The original tab is behind the shock mount.

can you tell a difference in above pic?

That's about it for now.
It's a good project as it is a compilation of mini-projects,
well most cars and motorcycles are I guess.

stool time fun

More later.

TP