How to Set Up Your Motorcycle Workshop: Designing, Tooling, and Stocking

This informative, comprehensive book is the first installment in Whitehorse Press' new Tech Series. It will help you set up your motorcycle workshop to make the most of available space, and equip it with the tools necessary to get the job done. Whether you plan only to keep your bike clean and in good repair or you want to become more seriously involved with restoration, customization or even a professional repair shop, this book will show you how it's done. It is full of useful ideas for organizing your space to let you work more effectively and do a better job. If you have more ambitious goals, you'll find guidelines for setting up painting, welding and even metal fabrication operations.

In his entertaining, whimsical style, author Charlie Masi explains the basic principles of motorcycle workshops, and helps you determine what your needs are. He offers ideas on planning and designing your motorcycle shop and practical advice on what equipment you'll need, as well as which tools are needed for electrical work, motor work, and chassis work. Masi offers helpful suggestions about which tools to keep with your bike, which tools you'll need in emergency situations, and valuable hints and tips on which tools to purchase, which tools you can fabricate, and best of all, how to use them. Amusing anecdotes recount real-life experiences, and examples of what not to do.

With over 200 photographs and detailed illustrations, this book goes beyond setting up a workshop, explaining how tools work, and what you should do to work safely with them. How to Set Up Your Motorcycle Workshop is truly a valuable, money-saving aid you'll return to time and again.

C.G. Masi, or "Charlie" to those who have to put up with him on a daily basis, was not born in a log cabin to poor immigrant farmers. He was born in Franklin, Massachusetts to middle class professional parents--both were school teachers. He was a middling student in high school, where he claims to have majored in "cars and girls." After a brief stint as an English major at Boston University's School of Education, where he says he really majored in "drugs"--it was, after all, the late 1960s--he quit to tour the country and has been somewhat of a gypsy ever since. He and his wife, Bonnie, have set up residence at 17 locations in five states. They have two grown children, who also live on opposite sides of the country.

Along the way, Charlie picked up a Bachelor's degree in Physics, a Master of Science degree in Astrophysics and a Master's in Business Administration. He has worked as a college professor, scientist, engineer and journalist. His journalistic credentials include well over 100 articles published in scholarly, trade and consumer publications, and launches of three successful magazines: Test & Measurement Europe, Motorcycle Tour & Travel, and Cal Lab.

Charlie currently writes regularly for Research & Development magazine, manages the Technical Articles Program for Hewlett-Packard Company's Test and Measurement Operation, and continues to author numerous articles for various publications. His interests, in addition to motorcycles, include aviation, amateur astronomy, target shooting and "anything else that looks like fun."