Hello to all my old Friends of Simplex.  I hope everyone is doing well.  As you can probably guess, I've taken a break from the motorbikes for a while.  I will retire in March, so hope to pick up the ball again.  Can you tell me what the dates are for the Portland meet?
seeya,
Mike Sal(tsgaver)

Military bikes  had the gooseneck so the handlebars could be turned 90 degrees for shipping (and throwing out of airplanes).

Sometime in '56, I think, the stamping die for the handlebar plate broke & rather than fix it (talking about the curved sides), they modified it to just be straight sided.
Mike Sal

Wow, those are some massive risers.....shouldn't have too much shrink in your platten or form.

It'll take a few hours to work down the finish on those.  I don't know how many hours I put into that casting of a shotgun I made, but it was a bunch......
Mike Sal

I thought prices on everything at the meet were about the same as in the past....not sure about the simplex parts as the guys had them all scooped up by the time we got there, but I think they got some good deals.  Bob Legron was selling some of his excess parts.

I got some good deals on bicycle parts.  I haven't been able to find any used parts here locally, but at Portland, there was a whole stack of them on the ground & the guy said, take them all...they're free....& I bought new fenders for 2.00 a pair....
Mike Sal

Well, the good news is Wayne had a new 2 terminal coil at the meet.  I had to shave a little out of the inner insulation to get it to fit onto the laminations.  The bad news is that didn't immediately fix the spark issue.  With help from "old timers" Ernie & Jim, we got spark (we tried too many things all at the same time to know true root cause, but suspect my points gap was too small), but still no start.....

Ernie started pinching off the needle adjustment on the carb (back when the bike first konked out, I thought it was a carb issue & I piddled with all of the adjustments....so who knows how badly I had it adjusted) & it finally caught & I was able to ride the bike a total of about 2 blocks.....when I returned to the camp, I had to choke it to kill it (we had unhooked the switch to make sure we weren't getting a false ground on the ignition).....when I went to re-start it 5 minutes later, it wouldn't hit a lick......I got so mad, I pushed it over to Sonrisers for the group picture, then pushed it back to camp, and let it set till we loaded it into the truck to bring it home.

I'm sure it will run now as soon as I get the carb tuned in (I'll probably swap back to the new Carpenter carb that I have too). 
Mike Sal

Bad news....no spark after putting the bike back together....I wonder if when that one output terminal blew out it was a signal that the coil is shot?  I figure I'm going to drop it off at Wayne's booth when I get to Portland & leave a blank check.....wish me luck....
Mike Sal

Nice project.  Do you have a stamper lined up to do the pressings?  Have the expressed any concerns about the narrow end?  What  are you using for a stripper plate?
Mike Sal

Who doesn't believe that place will be a ghost town by Sunday.
Mike Sal