Helping a Triumph to Stay Legal

1969 Triumph Bonneville.

The Customer’s Triumph: An Opportunity to Restore

Early on in the shops program to introduce a commissioning service for our customers, we had a customer contact us regards a collectors display model of a Triumph motorbike.
In his description he said he had a Franklin Mint Triumph Bonneville and the rear light cluster was missing and could we get a replacement for him.

At the time of this enquiry the Franklin Mint company were no longer actively making or marketing their hand made collectors models so trying to get a replacement part from them was probably a no go situation!

Triumph of Ingenuity: Designing the Replacement Part

Doing a bit of research on the real bike and managing to find pictures of another example of the same model, I could see the overall design of the missing unit. I contacted the customer with a suggestion that I could make a light cluster for him. He was surprised that such a small plastic moulding could be hand made but agreed that would be the best answer and it would make his model complete again, ready for displaying in his cabinet.

Rear lamp unit.

Gathering Specifications for a Custom Build

I asked the customer to email me some pictures of his model showing the back where the light unit would be placed and some measurements of the back plate which would have the lens attached to.

Rear lamp unit backplate.

Rear lamp unit backplate.

Triumph in Miniature: Tackling a 1/10 Scale Challenge

The Franklin Mint 1969 Triumph Bonneville motorbike model is a very nice item to own, being hand made and packed in a sturdy colourful box which all goes to making these models somewhat of an investment and mint in box examples today, can command a three figure sum of money!

Sourcing Materials: The Key to Success

The model is made to a scale of 1/10 so the new replacement part is going to be quite small, but still just about big enough for me to actually hold during the crafting session.

The customers measurements were very helpful despite actually showing them in centimetres instead of millimetres!

 Customers measurements.

Crafting with Everyday Tools: A Pen Saves the Day

OK, how will I hand make something that probably took Franklin Mint’s engineers a lot of time, prototyping and money in the first place to make theirs?
First idea is to source some clear red moulded plastic which I felt sure I had because in one of many parts boxes I would have the scrap runners from various plastic kits, that hold the moulded parts so car kits would have clear red mouldings for the rear lights etc as shown in this picture, which came from a Tamiya kit.

Clear red plastic.
There is a section in the corner of this red plastic moulding which could be useful for making the larger part of the bike’s lens but if not, I would cut  two lengths out of the runner and glue them together.

The distinctive rounded part of the lens was an easy one to do as a non working pen I had, had the right size plunger which just needed cutting to the right size.

Yes a pen!

Triumph Completed: The Finished Lamp Unit

After some cutting, filing, gluing and polishing, I had a rather nice replica 1969 Triumph Bonneville motorbike rear lamp lens.

Looking good.

A Collector’s Triumph Restored

The customer was impressed on seeing the finished item and waited for delivery to his home.
The final picture includes some hand tools to show how small the part is!

Hand tools for scale.