The CB1100 Community Forum

That could be some fun, Gone.

Maybe if we get lucky, we'll see some tools few will recognize.

(11-02-2023, 10:43 AM)Gone in 60_imp Wrote: [ -> ]Ok, how about this: since some of us are still riding while others have already had to put their bikes away for the season, here are two options. We might have done this before, I’m not sure.

If you are still riding, your CB with a train. Could be a whole train, part of a train, a currently running train, a static, historically displayed train.

If you can no longer ride this month, your bike shown with your oldest motorcycle-specific tool in your arsenal.

I can and will still ride this month, but "oldest motorcycle-specific tool in your arsenal" made me think a bit...

While it could be used for many things, for 15 years this orange beauty of a toolbox has been used to store my tap sets, and they have been used specifically for mc repairs, so I hope that's close enough.



When I was 5 years old, my dad gave me this tool box. It had a big gold sticker on the front in the shape of a star that claimed "7 year guarentee". Or maybe I was 7 years old and the guarentee was for 5 years. No matter, I was pretty happy about that guarentee because it was for longer (or nearly longer) than I was old.

Anywho...this ol' toolbox has with-stood the test of time, travelling from Kansas to Arizona to Oregon, and maybe soon to Costa Rica. It always makes me smile when I think about my dad buying it from Sears Roebuck for his youngest of 4 sons. I was--by far--the least mechanically inclined of the boys. He likely bought it thinking it would help me take an interest in things mechanical.

By the time I took up motorcycling in earnest 20 years ago, my dad was on the decline with dementia and couldn't hold a conversation. I've never really thought about what he might have said of my motorcycle adventures. I think he would have taken a keen interest in the trips I've been able to do, and maybe even have been proud that I try my best to maintain my motorcycles without my brothers' help even.

Oh...and orange was his favorite color.

A nice story behind the toolbox, pdedse.

The CB1100 looks to be in mint condition in that image too.

I'm treating this tool as my oldest Motorcycle Specific Tool because I still use it on all my bikes. I know every proper Engineer will scowl at and adjustable for serious work but in a lot of simple scenarios that is all that is needed, especially high quality ones whose mechanism is precisely made with quality materials.

I joined the Merchant Navy (AKA Merchant Marine) when I was 16 and did a four year apprenticeship where I learnt to weld, solder & braze, machine (lathe, shaping machine, Mill and so on), sheet metal work, cold metal work and technology stuff in the classroom. Zeus tables looked daunting at first but they became your invaluable friend.

After two years you went to sea for a year and you are presented with an Adjustable Spanner the first day you enter the Engine room. The shipping company gave you one, lose it and you pay for another out of your own wages. When you were only earning £28.75 per week the high quality BAHCO was an expensive proposition. As everybody had the same spanner, always the 8" too, you stamped it with your initials that day. You carried it everywhere and it was your go to device for nipping up leaky water or steam pipes, adjusting valve stem packing nuts and all manner of things.

I still have it today and use it regularly, 43 years later, no doubt due to the fact I stamped it on day one.

Tev62, great story and photo! Going to be hard for anyone to top that.

That's a great story, Tev. The adjustable oozes confidence. Coming out of high school, I was drawn to the U.S. Coast Guard and/or Navy, but it became the road not taken.

So if one lost his spanner and someone else found it, would it get back to the owner because of the stamped initials? Or would it get "re-branded" with new initials like cattle-rustlers would do with "lost" cattle on the U.S. frontier?

Ah ya. Somewhere around here there is an adjustable spanner from the early 1960s with an integrated rim spoon at the other end.

No initials, but the same old rusty-like iron look and the spanner wrench shows a-many-slip-bolt scars on the pinchers. - lol My knuckles hurt already.

(11-02-2023, 11:05 PM)pdedse_imp Wrote: [ -> ]That's a great story, Tev. The adjustable oozes confidence. Coming out of high school, I was drawn to the U.S. Coast Guard and/or Navy, but it became the road not taken.

So if one lost his spanner and someone else found it, would it get back to the owner because of the stamped initials? Or would it get "re-branded" with new initials like cattle-rustlers would do with "lost" cattle on the U.S. frontier?

You always got it back . Too hard to disguise an overstamp. Plus of course we were all gentlemen .


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Commuter trains in the Port Jervis, NY railroad yard. I rode on that train-line for 21 years as part of my commute to my midtown Manhattan.

Good job Suhawk,