Greetings from Istanbul

[Athewx54]

My Name is Ahmet and I am from the Turkish Republic. I live in a very close city to Istanbul, its name is Sakarya. But I showed my greetings from Istanbul. Since (1) many people here would know Istanbul better than my city of accommodation today. (2) I lived in Istanbul for about seven years and I am only 27. So, I can easily call myself I am from Istanbul.

My career is quite of an interesting thing when you look at my interests and hobbies. I am a lawyer (not actively practicing though) and my research assistant job will start soon. But the field of law and scholarships in social science are the fields that are mostly abstract. Thus, the people like me need some connection with materials and need to work on things that are not solely abstract. That connection would be anything but my previous and successful attempt was about two years ago that I and my brother constructed a workshop from scratch at the backside of our house.

I am almost new to the metal shaping. Last year, when I was doing my master's degree in Dublin, the urge to have a motorcycle took me in like a magnet. I have researched a lot of things for motorcycles. While I had started saving money for buying a motorcycle after finishing the degree and returning back to the home country. However, things did not go well. I was able to save some money to buy a brand new 250 cc motorcycle such as suzuki inazuma. But later I realized I am in debt to the government for college credits and lots of interests upon it. I had to pay and I paid. Very little money left to buy a motorcycle and I did not want to buy a trash motorcycle. So I decided to build a motorcycle on my own. My thoughts at the time would be like "I did not have the experience to build a workshop like a house and I did it. Why on earth I could not build a motorcycle."


I and my brother have now focused on woodworking at the moment; since, it is a bit cheaper to buy wood-working equipment and start working. You might have been in the same situation where you had to play with a low budget. My brother is fixing and maintaining robots at Toyota, married and has one kid and I am going to marry soon. Those time and money costs cut a lot of stuff that normally I would invest in the workshop. These life events limit my passion to a hobby level. But I cannot do without them as well. ( Sorry for being off topic here but I really wanted to express my situation well.)

For custom motorcycle building, I have researched extensively on the topic of welding and I have some skills in it. Of course, I need to improve a lot more and buy a really good welding machine. However, the welding skills are not enough to build a motorcycle. The preparation of the tubes, bending them, building fenders and gasoline and oil tank, seats, and lights housing require very good skills and knowledge in metal shaping. Therefore, I have to improve those skills as well. Some of you might be familiar with the Covell videos. I am not sure how he is regarded in this forum. But when I see him working on some sheet metal, I understood that there are lots of skills that I have to hone in. One of the preliminary reasons you see me trying to join this forum is improving my skills in metal shaping. While doing this, I would also build some of the equipment for my workshop. For instance; the English Wheel is not commonly available here in Turkey so I have to build it.

A hobby should be a serious activity to carry out. From starting registration to this point, I see this kind of seriousness in the forum. This is also a kind of attitude I was seeking. I would not want a place where people gather but some of them do not share the same frequency of mindset with the rest of the group. At those times; collapses, inconsistencies, and fights are waiting to come. I am far from those and all I want is to build my first motorcycle. Therefore, I would be very honored to meet people in the same or similar mindset.

Cheers, All the Best!
Ahmet

[Peter Tommasini]

Hi Ahmet welcome to the forum
Peter

[Athewx54]

Thanks a lot, Peter!

[Paul-S]

Hoş geldiniz Ahmet
Welcom to the forum!
Hope you enjoy yourself here.

Greetings Paul

[cliffrod]

Welcome to the forum, Ahmet. Glad to have you here. I think most of us are here because we can afford or justify to build things more easily than we can afford to buy them.

A very old car & motorcycle friend of mine now lives in Turkey. He told me how rules there are much different regarding older machines and the need to keep them registered & in use. He left his old machines here in the states when he moved there years ago.

How does it work with custom motorcycles? Can you build one and register it without too much trouble or do you have to begin with a registered machine, some formal process or ?? Just curious.