At Stewart's funeral last year, Jeff suggested that it would be really nice to put a plaque on the bench at Wimbotsham village green, where Stewart used to sit all day during the huge Fenman motorcycle event on August Bank Holiday Mondays.
I went that way home to check the bench out and found it to be in very poor repair. To cut a long story short we offered to restore the bench for the parish council in return for being allowed to dedicate it to Capo and they were pleased to accept the offer.
Work commenced immediately and I prepared some Iroko slats for the new bench. I also sketched out an idea for the plaque which needed to be rendered in CAD so it could be laser engraved on Titanium. We thought that would be appropriate since his bike was covered with bespoke Titanium replacement parts.
There were some months of delay while I discovered that I didn't have the ability to do this and neither did anyone that I knew who did CAD. Rob our President stepped in kindly and made it his mission to render my concept onto Cad for the laser. This was certainly not an easy task, but he stuck at it till the end and the results are sensational.
The Titanium plate was waterjet cut locally in Norfolk. It was engraved by PMP Laser Technologies in Poole.
A few weeks ago Grumpy and I went to the village and dismantled the bench. Grumpy took the metal parts away for blasting and coating and returned them to me for assembly with the slats.
Dacs kindly popped over and helped with the tricky drilling and bolting the whole jigsaw back together.
Today Grumpy came and collected the finished bench and we all met at Wimbotsham to bolt it back down.
Huge thanks to everyone involved in this especially Rob who moved mountains to get that image right in a form that the laser could read. Also to Albie and Shuffy for sending the original high definition calendar picture of Capo's bike for Rob to trace.
In case you're wondering what the moto means, it's "The Boss of all the Bosses" which Capo had written on his seat fairing.
I hope you like it? We now have a place of pilgrimage for the future.
Rest in peace Capo.