Click for larger shots....
Yep... homemade aluminum hard luggage... on a ninja 250.
The boxes are made from .040 thick 6061-t6 aluminum dimpled and riveted with flush aircraft rivets. The front curves were done using a shrinker and a lot of fiddling... I had some fancier touble-curve fronts but these are better though not quite as "impressive" to the 0.0001% of people who would know what they were seeing. They are set up to mount to the passenger foot peg mounts (though they aren't really passenger compatible) in the front and ride a little bit above the muffler.... there is about an inch of clearance all along. The brace across the back is still temporarily held in place with clamps (clecos really)... once everything is final fitted it will be riveted. The load will be born on straps running over (or perhaps under) the seat, but it's bolted firmly at the footpegs and a few other points. I just didn't want to set up any potential metal fatigue failures.
The turn signals are LED truck turn signals... &@#$ing BRIGHT!
The curve on the front pretty much prevents any contact between the rider and the boxes, even when walking the bike around.
The lids aren't on 'cause I'm still fitting the boxes... but the boxes themselves are sized to hold sleeping rolls and other standard camping gear... I don't have an exact volume but they are pretty big.(22" long axis, 6" wide at the front, 7" wide at the rear, and of course they get deeper towards the back... not the most useful configuration but each one will hold three gallons of milk.
Once I'm all finished I'm going to spray the inside with that truck bed liner spray and paint the outside to match the bike.... but I'll probably ride around with them bright for a few weeks just to make sure there are no mods required.
See... now this is what building airplanes as a hobby does to you.
