Bondy

The design was taken from a painting Dave did back in the day. It was called “Digital Tornado”. I’ve used the design as the theme of this tribute to him.

Almost every bolt head seen has been cleaned up on the lathe and polished. Paint came back. It looked stunning except one area on the tank. Tank went back to be sorted. It hs to be perfect. Nothing less will do.

More stuff made on the lathe and bits anodised.

So, frame back from the powder man and in with the lump. Gary also coated the engine covers too. Sam Baker made a set of yokes with risers too. Bloody lovely. They’re pocketed out. Bit different than the norm.

So, the frame went off to Gary at Promo Polishing and Powder Coating. I decided on the fine texture satin black as ive used it before on my old Bandit 1371 and also have had one of my Spondons done in the same stuff. It looks lovely. Once the frame was media blasted, there were a couple of areas that needed attention. So, picked up and off to Harris’s was the only option. They put it on the jig and checked it. Glad to say it was still straight. They filled the damaged areas with bronze weld and then it was ready for powder. That gave me some time to prep and paint the engine.

So i put my lathe to good use again. Made loads of little bits. Anodised black and the ofd polished bit for contrast. I was faffin about trying to come up with a seat design. I knew what i wanted but disnt know if it existed. Adam Croxall messaged me. He said,”why not just use a Rotax item” as it turns out, the Rotax seat unit was fitted by Harris in development and the tank was designed to flow with the seat. I was trying to reinvent the wheel.

This was how it came back to me. A completely blank canvas.

The man himself. Many of you will remember him from various shows and bike meets. He would chat to anyone about all sorts for hours.

Morning all. Well, after seeing Pete’s amazing Kat on these pages, i thought I’d better show you the Mag 4 build. I bought the bike a couple of years ago now. It was advertised on facebook but to be honest, it looked very sorry for itself. Dented tank, shitty R1 seat and rattle can paint on the frame. My mate Dave Swingarm Roberts came with me to get it one Friday evening. We decided to go pick it up from Romford and double back to the Ace Cafe after for food. So, on the Saturday i stripped it down to a bare frame. The idea was to rebuild it using Bandit wheels and Slingshot front end. Nothing major, just a nice useable special. Well, Dave mentioned that if i were to sell the frame kit he would buy it. He said I’d sold the Mag 2 kit to John Martin and he had wanted it. So after being worn down for a couple of weeks, i sold the kit to Dave. He started getting sime bits together. He had a donor engine and scored a set of Harris rearsets from a good mate. All was going well until one day Dave turned up at mine on his bike and broke the bad news. He had been to see a specialist and he had Liver Cancer. I cant describe how i felt that day. It wasnt long after my Mum had died, so the rawness was still present. Dave sadly passed away some 5 months later. We had his funeral. He had his last ride in a Busa hearse and managed 89 mph before the whole thing started to shake lol. His other half Jane asked 3 of us if we would build his bikes. A tribute to the big fella. Pete has done an outstanding job of building the Kat. Leigh Kerridge has nearly finished rebuilding Dave’s trusty steed, his black Bandit. And i have been building the Mag 4. I sat with Jane and we came up with a plan. We had a vision of what Dave wanted. It was to be black with gun metal colour paintwork. This was how it looked the day i bought it.

Not been on here for a while. Well, i decided to take the bike to the TT this year. I must admit to being a little apprehensive with the thought of riding 238 miles to the ferry on 20mm race foam. I made myself a little cushion out of bubble wrap. This helped massively, however by the time i got to Heysham the bubbles had all but popped. Nothing that a beenie hat wedged between the layers disnt sort out. I was at the TT for 10 days and the bike behaved impeccably. Only little issue was a low tension wire to the coil. I covered nearly a thousand miles total bringing the mileage up to 1500 since it was built. The Bandit forks let it down but i have a set of 1100k legs to fit come the winter. A few of the bits i anodised have faded too. Nothing major. Just another little thing i put down to R and D. Not having ever done anodising before, its all learn as you go. I'll see if i can put a few pics up too.

Thanks ash. I'm humbled.

Yes. Baby blade mate. But I wish I looked for something different now as they run H4R bulbs. 35/60 watt. £25 each.

I've ridden it already mate. Done about 130 miles so far. It has thrown up a few issues. One being the rear caliper setup. The wheel bearings and spacer tube are floating slightly within the wheel. After riding the bike for a few miles, the bearing/tube assembly worked its way along the wheel allowing the caliper bracket to rub on the rear disc. This has now been sorted. I basically made different sized spindle spacers and anodised them. It's now perfect. I do need to clean the tarnish marks from the disc though where it got hot. other minor problem is gearing. I need to go up a tooth on the front. It revs out around 135. It just feels like it's racing everywhere. 80 on the motorway sounds very strange. the biggest issue is the head gasket. It has sprung an oil leak but only squirts out oil above 4/5 thousand rpm. I've now got a new gasket ready to fit. Just need to down size on the jets a little. But it's fuckin quick.

It's all built with an MoT. It has a slight oil leak from the head gasket but only minor. Pulls like a train.