Evan Jones: Miniature Motorcycle Mechanic

What is the diameter of a motorcycle battery ground cable? Now in 1:12 ^th scale?

That’s a tricky question to answer. But for Evan Jones and his community of model builders, it’s just small talk.

We meet the Guelph native at the Kingston Modelrama Show . Standing in the exhibition hall, our setting is somewhere between a showroom and a showdown. The atmosphere is initially characterized by tip trading and friendly reunions. But as the modellers are ushered out, their indiscriminate appreciation follows suit. An air of competition quickly descends on the exquisite miniatures. Silently, each model dares the judges to find a fault.

Evan has recently seen success at these competitions, although his hobby goes back much further.

Well I started as a kid – building airplanes with my dad who was a war veteran – and it sort of evolved from there. … I gave up the hobby for about twenty years when I got married and had kids and my time was sort of limited. And I got back into it about ten years ago.

Evan’s passion for real bikes is also longstanding. In fact, he has one of the coolest “how I met my motorcycle” stories you’re likely to hear.

So the story is, I was a volunteer over in Sierra Leone, West Africa ... And while I was there, Sierra Leone had this big conference where they invited all the heads of state from all of the African countries together.

[The government] decided that they would get BMW police bikes – 1000ccs – to escort all of these heads of state around. So they gave [the BMWs] to all of the policemen, who had never ridden anything bigger than a 125cc dirt bike. And they promptly crashed about half of them.

I managed to buy three of [the crashed bikes] while I was there. Got one running and sold it, and then shipped whatever I had left over back [to Canada] ... So I still have that ’79 police-based BMW that I ride.

In a word – sweet.

But how does Evan’s passion for motorcycles scale down? What is transferrable between ride-able beasts and miniature replicas?

Let’s find out.

Model building is exceptionally meticulous. Evan tightens individual bolts and nuts, which frequently measure in the micro-meters. And at this scale, you need a magnifying glass to tell a hex head from a socket cap.

Likewise, it takes a trained eye to spot the difference between hydraulic and mechanical brake cables. A whopping 0.04mm sets the diameters apart.

My dad was a dentist, and when he gave up his practice I got all his old picks … I also have a miniature metal lathe where I can turn small metal parts. I have a spray booth and two air brushes. And … lots of little tiny tools and machines that I can use.

Of course, working with miniature tools can take a gargantuan amount of time. Evan tells me that a “simple build” takes around 30 hours. And when I ask about a complex project, he laughs and shakes his head:

You stop counting for those ones. It’s a lot.

I certainly lack the patience for this. And while I enjoy wrenching on motorcycles, my temperament leaves me reaching for the hammer a little too often. Any model kit that graced my shop would undoubtedly be reduced to a pile of sticky plastic.

Evan, on the other hand, has the Zen of a model builder.

I find it very relaxing. A lot of people think I’m crazy for saying that. But I find you have to have a lot of patience. You know, you turn off the telephone and relax.

There’s a lot of cursing going on [too]. There’s no doubt about that at times [laughs]. But it’s also very rewarding.

Model building is as creative as it is precise. To make a kickstand spring, Evan harvests tiny coils of metal from old watchband pins. He drills holes into a golf club shaft to replicate the perforated shroud of a dry clutch. And when an antenna is needed, a friendly feline donates one of its whiskers.

Despite obvious differences, something at the core of building is transferable between real motorcycles and models. Perhaps it's the satisfaction of applying mechanical aptitude, or the joy of seeing your intangible vision become real.

When something finally comes together … and it finally takes 3-dimensional form ... and you put it out on the table and somebody says, “You built a model of my bike!” - that’s usually the real reward for this stuff.

As an engineer that never actually built anything – because I built software – I think that this brings out the engineering in me. I want to build something. And this is a nice, cost-effective way of building motorcycles ...

I can hardly wait to retire, quite frankly, so that I can spend more time building.

The passion for collecting is also scalable.

Interviewing Evan is exactly like chatting with any motorcycle collector. He targets models that have a Canadian story, and is eager to use his collection in re-telling it. Evan takes pride in comprehensiveness and seeks to expand the scope of his ensemble. Filling bookcase after bookcase, he's making a pointillist painting of motorcycle history. And each tiny bike is a dot.

Like every true collector, Evan has no end goal. The joy is in amassing, not counting.

For 80-some motorcycle models that I’ve built, I probably have at least 80 projects in my head … I often kid people that I have more motorcycles than Jay Leno.

Someone once asked me … “What’s your best model?” And I said, “My best model that I’ve ever built, is the next one.”

When Evan wants to feel the freedom of riding, he grabs the ’79 Beemer and hits the road. But when it comes to building and collecting, motorcycle models can substitute for the real deal.

If you share these passions, and you lack the bankroll for full-size bikes, perhaps you should think smaller.

People would be surprised at the quality of the kits now ... they’re a lot more relaxing to put together than in the old days.

If you’ve got a passion about bikes, then why not pick up a bike kit and see what it does for you?

Evan Jones' Scale Models: http://www.eajonesgue.com/scalemodels/