‘Force of Nature’

‘Force of Nature’ is a Steam Powered ‘Rocket’ Motorcycle built by Graham Sykes for drag racing, record breaking, exhibitions and events. Four years ago Graham brought along this amazing bike and told members about the project. Graham, a precision engineer from North Yorkshire, designed his rocket bike in his garden shed with his wife, Diane, over the course of a decade.

Graham recently published a ‘Big Update’ on the project. Following his report there are some links to his Facebook page with videos for you to view and a series of photographs from his page…. Don’t miss the ‘Supercar Blondie’ video ! Thanks go to Andrew Kibler for forwarding the latest news about the project.

Here is Graham’s report:-

“Lots are going on in the background and even more going on in the workshop since the last update. The vessel is now complete and fully ceramic painted. The front double skin heating manifold is now complete and wrapped with Basalt insulation. The rear heater manifolds are now machined and fitted as well as the new design turbulators fitted into the heater tubes. The rear heater exhausts are now all fabricated and fitted and the ceramic insulation is now all fitted to the vessel and foil taped. The new insulation cover is being made from 1.2mm Aluminium glass fibre cloth. All sewn with 0.9 mm Kevlar thread. Diane is well on with this and has taken over the dining room machining the new cover! On top of all this the new re designed bodywork is now back from Hansell composites and it all fits well. Next is to finish machine the handle bar upright mounts and front damper mounts to fit the front end onto the new vessel. That’s next weeks work laid out and brings the build back on track. So this weeks work has been mainly about insulation. Keeping the water hot in the tank is key to power. The heat energy is the power not the pressure. We need the pressure to achieve the water temperature required 250 deg C 40 Bar. Even though I am still working full time running my own engineering business, I am managing to work on the rocket around 50 hours a week to try and get the bike ready for its first test in March. Long hours with early starts and late finishes. I cannot tell a lie it’s taking it out of me both financially and energy, but all this effort will be worth it and all this work will soon be history and the stepping stones that have to be passed to achieve our goals will be have been all worth it . More updates shortly. Thanks for following and please make yourselves known this year at meetings.”