The Super Scrambler

When I was in college back in the late 80's and early 90's I would buy one or two motorcycles each winter and turn them into cafe racers.  Winter is the best time to get a good deal on a mechanically sound bike that is just sitting in someone's garage.  If it runs great and has a title all the better.  I like to buy bikes that are super ugly and rework them to look and perform better.

This Honda xr600r was is great mechanical condition, but the decals and colors looked terrible!

Here is a project I did in the summer of 2015.  I was looking for a mid seventies dirt bike to restore and then started seeing the Honda xr bikes for sale.  I liked the idea of having an older bike, but the new bikes are more reliable and parts are cheaper and more easily found.

Big ugly rear view mirrors and headlight assembly.

New Super Moto Rims and Pirelli Corsa Tires

The first step in the rebuild was to strip off all of the plastic.  My daughter and I then went to Steeles Motorcycle in Denver to find a different tank, speedo, and headlight.  When I first saw this bike I immediately thought it would look cool as a mid-seventies Scrambler on Steroids.

The Super Scrambler - This is a one cylinder bike.  It is pretty loud and has a ton of torque!  

The headlight and speedo came from mid-seventies bikes.  they were found at Steeles Motorcycle in Denver, not sure what they came off of - we dug around for hours looking for them.  Fitting the tank and seat took a bit of time in order to get the lines right.  I took the original seat and cut it down a bit to get the shape I wanted then I covered it with grey vinyl.  I was originally think of a darker grey or black, but the light grey looked pretty good.

The tank is from a mid-seventies cl350.  It was painted gold, I was planning to sand off all of the paint and just clear coat the metal. When I started sanding off the gold I found the original red paint and orange primer, it looked cool so I only partially sanded off the paint on the sides of the tank.

The SUPER SCRAMBLER is one of the best looking, funnest bikes I've ever owned. It is a Thumper Extreme dirt bike that is street legal and is set up for the road!!  With the super moto set up with Sun Rims and Pirelli Corsa tires you bomb up the canyons and get your heart racing, or rip around town.  It is exhilarating to ride, and there is a lot of staring because this one of a kind bike looks like a mid-seventies scrambler on steroids!  

The bike is reliable because the XR is one of the most dependable bikes ever built by Honda.  I was the second owner and the bike came to me with super low hours for twenty year old bike, I put about 800 miles after turning it into a scrambler.

Here are the specs:
1996 xr600r
600 cc single cylinder
Scott Steering Stabilizer
Sun Rims with Pirelli Corsa Tires
New custom seat vinyl
FMF Mega Max Pipe - With spark arrest

2011 Kansas Preservation Alliance Award for Excellence

This was an amazing project that I had the good fortune to work on from 2007 through 2009. The owners of the severely deteriorated Lowell School purchased it to save it from demolition with the intent of transforming this old school house into housing for low income seniors. At the point that I started working on this project the building had been listed on the National Historic Register and owners had begun a dialog with the National Parks Service and the state historic preservation office about the adaptive reuse of the building.  My role was to work with the owners to create conceptional floor plans for the three existing public levels into one and two bedroom apartments. The biggest challenge for the making the project feasible was converting the unimproved attic space into usable living space by adding stairways, an elevator, and natural lighting with roof windows.  Materials produced included site plans, detailed floor plans for each of the four levels showing changes and additions to the existing structure, elevation drawings of the proposed exterior changes, and photo elevations showing proposed exterior changes. Once the proposed changes were accepted by the National Parks Service and State Historic Preservation the conceptual plans were transferred to the General Contractor and project architect for review and submittal for permitting. Lowell Elementary School, Kansas City, Wyandotte County

From the Kansas Preservation Alliance Website Lowell Elementary School, Kansas City Medallion Award for Rehabilitation to Historic Lowell Lofts, LLC Lowell Elementary School is located in the Riverview Neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas. The school is the neighborhood landmark in and otherwise residential area and was nominated to the National Register as being representative of the renowned regional architect W.W. Rose's work displaying an unrestrained interpretation of the Classical Revival style with Beaux Arts decorative elements and incorporating towers into the overall theme. Constructed in 1897, this former school is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The building was severely deteriorated before adaptation into 26 apartments for low-income senior citizens.  Byers Gunn and Hart Architects collaborated with Gastinger Walker Harden Architects and Shift Modern on the rehabilitation design and Foutch Brothers LLC along with T&G Custom Millwork served as the project contractor.  Additional assistance was provided by Hired Hand Communication LLC, Community National Bank, Spencer Fane Britt & Broun, Commerce Bank and Historic Preservation Partners, Inc.

Custom Dressers

It is interesting how projects come together. I met these clients when they were in the process of planning the remodel of their kitchen, things did not come together for that project, but we shared design sensibilities.
After they finished their kitchen remodel they contacted me to see if I could make some custom frames for some mirrors that used to be in their bathrooms. I made two bamboo frames out of unfinished bamboo flooring, and finished them with AMF safecoat oil finish. (I will insert pictures later)
While working on that project we started talking about dressers.... They wanted a modern style tall chest for for their daughter and a baby that was on the way. I used full extension slides so the drawers open nice and wide.
These are made with FSC certified maple and veneer plywood. I used low VOC AFM Safecoat satin finish.

The handles were custom made with maple and 1/2 acrylic scrap.

After finishing the first two dressers I designed and built 6 drawer dresser. For finish we went with FSC certified oak and oak veneer, with a dark chocolate finish. The finish was a custom blend of low VOC clear finish and low VOC dark chocolate latex pigment


(Will add pictures later)

Rails in Time for Christmas

This was a fun little project taken on before Christmas. The client had seen some of my other acrylic work for another client. He has a late seventies-early eighties home that he has done very nice updates to. The project was to replace the original 2x4 rails with something more modern to match his other updates and furnishings.
After several rounds of design ideas we focused in on steel and frosted acrylic. Since the rail divides the entry space from the loft space, we wanted the rail to transmit light while providing better privacy. Also the former 2 x 4 rails were not the prettiest thing, but they were saved for another use later!!!!

(The final design is on the right)



I had to install the rail one half at a time because 2 of the six panels had to be custom cut, the others were off cut scraps from a KC plastics company. The off cut scraps are generally quite a bit cheaper than the custom cuts, and often they get thrown out.

The client came back in and painted the trim and did minor drywall touch-ups.


The rails are made from uni-strut that is normally used to hang conduit and fixtures in commercial settings. It worked well for this application because it is stiff and is easy to connect. I used a grinder to polish the steel then coated with a low VOC clear finish to protect the shine.
The uni-strut rail system worked so well that I intend to use it in other situations, like awnings and privacy screens.

Bamboo Dining Room Table

Last year I was working with a client to rework her living space and she expressed interest in finding and buying a bamboo dining room table. I agreed to help her find one because I had been hearing so many great things about the sustainability of bamboo.

As is often the case for emerging ideas the hype with bamboo furniture does not mean that items discussed are available. We looked in our local market for a bamboo dining table and were not able to find one, and searching the internet provided hours of research without finding something that fit in our budget.
I resolved to build a custom table and we decided that I would use bamboo plywood, simple enough right!!!!
Well after a bit of searching I finally found a vendor in the Kansas City area that sells Plyboo. I of course found out later that they do not stock the Plyboo so if I wanted to buy it I would have to pay for shipping. The plywood price was around $250 a sheet, pretty high but workable. The shipping price was not immediately available, when they called me back in a few days and told me that the shipping would be around $250 per sheet I realized that this was going to be an expensive project.
I looked online for other purchase options for bamboo plywood but I did not find anything that was significantly less expensive. By the time I added a table base, cut the plywood and did the finish work I was finding realizing that the table would be pretty expensive for a piece of plywood with legs.
I searched the web to see if it was possible to buy bamboo dimensional lumber, but did not. I did find several sites that had some trim and stair treads, which did not suit my purposes.
The project was on the shelf for a few months when I was researching bamboo flooring for another client and I was looking at a website that offered unfinished bamboo flooring, and I started thinking about unfinished flooring as possible table top material. I have used unfinished flooring for table top applications before, the unfinished flooring does not have a micro-bevel on the edges between pieces, which allows for sanding and finishing with less obvious joints. The unfinished flooring costs about 1/3 to 1/2 what the plywood costs and the shipping was about a tenth of the plywood.
Once I received the unfinished bamboo flooring I laid out the table in such a way as to use an entire case which produced a table top, 3 feet wide and 7 feet long. The bamboo was attached to FSC birch plywood and then I finished the table with an 1 - 1/2 inch edge.
I used a water based low voc finish, which I would not do again because the finish tends to wick into the fiber of the bamboo, causing pock marks. I used oil - wax finish on my newer tops, it smells great and has a nice luster.
I have continued to refine my fabrication methods and have created a collection of 6 tables that are made with reused vintage(1950's) douglas fir plywood, reclaimed wood breadboard ends, and bamboo. I used vintage hairpin table legs for three of the tables and they look great with the new tops.
I am hopeful that in the near future the bamboo plywood manufacturing companies will start offering bamboo dimensional lumber, then the design possibilities really open up for this wonderful material.

Why SHIFT modern?

The SHIFT in the name is a reference to a broad paradigm shift to live in mindful harmony with the environment.

The modern housing movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s had many similarities to the current desire for unique living spaces. The current “green” movement is more broad-based and intentional about the full environmental consequences of design in addition to being unique. SHIFT modern focuses on materials that are reused, recycled and sustainable.

Modular design is employed whenever possible to reduce waste during planning rather than during building. SHIFT modern often repurposes materials to get the look of custom finishes without the cost and waste.

I find it very intrigueing that many of the "prefab" homes that are available look very similar to my house which was built in 1961. I am hopeful that the prefab movement realizes the promise of well reasoned and efficiently constructed homes. I think one of the driving forces will be the shift of the baby boomers wanting to live in smaller well conceived and built homes. I also hope this translates into higher density construction with shared utilities and better community structures.

Alternative Energy Rant

I like to dream about ways to make alternative energy assessable to everyone...
Today I am really focused on the fact that I am tied to a grid that I cannot control and that may be perilously fragile... today is an ice storm day. It is raining pretty hard, the trees have a pretty good coat of ice, which is still building. I occasionally have to focus on being calm because my heart is racing as fast as the rain drops splatter on the roof. The wind is picking up and that means limbs of the large trees in town will be starting to break. The rumble of utility trucks can already be heard, in fact a crew was just down the street removing a branch from a line.
About six years ago there was a significant ice storm here in north eastern Kansas and we lost power for about three days, the ice was beautiful, but it was pretty scary not having traditional utilities. We borrowed a generator, but that was a pretty small band aid.
Here's what I want:
I want the utility company to put PV solar arrays on my house, I will let them do so for free, and they can charge me regular price for the electricity I use and they can keep the rest in their grid. If the companies did this on residential and commercial properties, maybe we could avoid having to build any more coal fired power plants and we would have a more diversified energy production system. I know that this is not a silver bullet, but I want solar and like most people I cannot afford it!
The utilities should be able to realize return on investment sooner than I would, plus if they would offer free solar units to their customers they could start creating the economies of scale necessary to bring down the functional cost of solar power. I get so mad when I hear that solar is not competitive because of transmission costs, if power generation could become diversified to the point of usage we save in many respects.
Next Dream:
I want a hybrid solar-fuel cell powered heating system for my house. I want solar to generate hot water and hydrogen for heat and fuel storage. The traditional HVAC system is very myopic and produces waste on every front. I am not a physicist so I do not know if this is even possible, but I would like to have an integrated power generating and fuel storage system that could also power a vehicle. I really do not want to have a basement full of toxic batteries.
I think the number one obstacle to an energy production paradigm shift is the energy companies wanting to control distribution so they can control prices and profits. If they would focus their businesses on developing new technology and ways to lease/sell the generation equipment, they could get away from power being the commodity.
Wind energy:
The energy companies whine about start up costs and transmission, and there is the NIMBY factor of giant turbines congregated en mass. Here a modest proposal: Put the turbines along our highways!!!!! Instead of trying to hide the turbines on a farm, string them along our current highway system. Wouldn't it be cool to drive down the highway in an electric car, stop at the charging station that gets its energy from the turbines lining the roadway!!!!!
As you drive along a major interstate you will notice that there are already power poles, there would be good accessibility for construction, maintenance and transmission. They could be put up like Christmas lights, plug and play.
The other thing that often accompanies interstates are railroad lines, in most cases the land for the rail lines was given to the rail companies some time ago, this would be an excellent place to put more turbines, also the trains could easily transport the components to assemble the turbines.
I guess all of my dreams follow a singular theme, get over the centralized generation theme that has always been the norm for the generation of power. Integrated generation reduces need for transmission and ultimately creates a more stable and scalable way to incorporate green power.