disassembled Maisto 1936 Knucklehead

[Paul Payne]

I have been interested in turning a Maisto knucklehead into a bobber for some time. Having 2, as well as 2 Danbury Mint examples, I decided to try disassembling one in order to rebuild it. Yes, like all of us, I need another project like a hole in the head...... I had thought of this in conjunction with my truck, boat, and trailer project- maybe in the back of the Power Wagon. I have included a couple photos of what I might be going for, as well as actual disassembly photos. Although called a diecast, the only diecast pieces were the tank and engine. With the exception of a few pins everything else is plastic. Most of the plastic seems to be a fairly soft and flexible plastic more like vinyl than styrene. The light and horn, shifter, and one or 2 other parts do seem to be styrene. The engine has the air cleaner molded directly into the cylinders- no carb at all, and I will probably grind it off and file in the cylinder ribs- or make a mold and use the resin casting for the rework. There is a lot of parting line, as well as gouged areas from too aggressive sprue removal at the factory, plus parts like the shifter linkage are much to heavy. This is what my father-in-law would call a 20 footer- looks pretty good from a distance, but up close you see things. The disassembly itself went pretty well- took about an hour- biggest chore was removing the axle and steering pins- enough slack and flexibility to get side cutters in and snip them. After looking things over, there will be quite a bit of scratch building involved. I had planned on a new shifter, plus brake, oil, and fuel lines, and plug wires, but I think more will be happening. Just discovered I am having a file issue -things are coming in as jfif instead of jpeg- so only one disassembly photo- will try and add more when things are working right again.

[Paul Payne]

Here are a couple more pix:

[Kit Karson]

Looks like fun!

[Paul Payne]

Kit, I may try casting the engine in resin and trying to modify that. If I can successfully modify the copy, I will make a second mold and cast several, since I love knuckleheads. The reason I'm modifying the Maisto is that my Franklin Mint example was 45 bucks (ruin something cheap!), and since out of production. I'm also thinking of bending new handle bars from jumbo paper clip wire, adding a left side kick stand, twin fishtail pipes (copied from the Revell parts pack Harley), and maybe using different wheels and tires. A scratch built shifter and gate is mandatory- all parts of this either too thick or plain wrong. Also watch making fuzee chain for the chain drive with a watch gear sprocket. Parts design and assembly is really different from plastic kits, but I disassembled everything in about an hour and was even able to successfully peel the speedometer face off without damage.

Edited April 22, 2022 by Paul Payne