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Pay Backs, The Dick Gambino Story

296K views 986 replies 307 participants last post by  Dicky 
#1 · (Edited)
For those of you that cant read good. Just look at the pictures. But if you don't read it all.. Your missing the gems.

Edit: If your missing his site. Your missing the real show.
http://www.gambinometal.com/index.html
I was also able grab some video and put it on page 9.

So, I randomly ran into some girl one night. I must have mentioned I need a weld on my bike for some reason. She told me her dad works on old cars and does metal art. Dick Gambino metal craft. Then She showed me pics of his art things. She says "this is a picture of some old car he did a grill for". Little did she know it was a extremely high dollar Bugatti..!

I was like. If he could do that, he can surely weld on my lonely seat bungs. So I go to meet this weird old metal arts and crafts guy. He was out of the shop and left the roll gate up. To my shock I was staring at a hand formed dual head plugged BMW cafe racer where the side frame and cross braces welded solid. The lower frame rail is designed to be removable to pull the motor out the bottom!
This is the last thing I thought I would run into as I pulled in the drive way.



.

.
He showed up. We met, we talked. I told him I needed seat bungs welded and my numbers. Soon to find out he was an old biker and custom painter. Built choppers, stadium show bikes and drag bikes in the 60's. Raced a dirt Flat track in the 60's till he blew up his Ducati. Moved up to dragsters and painted funny cars in the 70's. Lives on a small sail boat.! In cold NJ year round. Did the body work for Ferrari race cars. Just plain unreal stuff. Topped of with the fact that he didn't redo a Bugatti grill. He hand shaped the whole car from photographs. All of the Bugatti fenders and body panels from flat steel. Yet he bills himself as a blacksmith.

At this point he had only seen my bare empty Triumph frame in hand. Two days later i picked up my frame with the seat bungs tacked up. I rushed home and built up my whole triumph chopper in three evenings. Threw it on a truck and drove it up for some other dodads/welds. As we pulled my chopper down he shoved me out of the way yelling "I gotta sit on it.. I gotta sit on it.. Oh yea, oh yea this is perfect".
He was like a crazed savage animal. So longer story short. He told me he wanted me to leave my bike there and I can come and work on it there. Come and go as I want and make sparks fly. All because he liked my bike and how i work. Works out great for me because he has all the big 100 year old tools and cool shit.

So I show up one day. There on the floor was this big old gang tool box. It looked like it had been under water cuz all the draws were like rust puddles. He then told me he had always wanted this box when he was a kid but couldn't afford one. He envied that box. All these years later someone found it and gave it to him. He lightly mentioned that one day he might think about fixing it up. Maybe paint it his old race colors.

So my plan was set. I was going to wait till he went on a trip to Texas and finish his dream because I know he just didn't have the time. I worked on it over three days. Ground out all the rust in the draws. Got some tough engine paint.
Painted it yellow and grey, his flat track racer colors.




Mind you these pics are after grinding and sanding.



I finished it up. Closed the lid and tossed it back on the floor in the scrap pile where it lay. Waiting for him to trip over it. So this was my little pay back for all of the priceless tip tricks he has given me.
 
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#169 · (Edited)
Re: Pay backs...



Now the bucket.

The building has no water so every day he uses this bucket to clean up. The water varies from gear oil sludge and metals to blackish grey depending what he has been working on. I felt he put in too many hard years to have to bend over and clean up in this bucket. So I got 5 gallon cooler and made him a fresh water station on a table.

He still uses the dang bucket! Every now and then after a hard days work he may splash off his face out of this bucket. One day I heard this sloshing sound and I thought it sounded odd for that time of day. I knew he was not cooling down hot metal from the forge. So i went walking around. There he was with a razor touching up his mustache from the bucket.! Sometimes I get mad at the bucket and I kick it over making him get fresh rain water.
 
#172 · (Edited)
Re: Pay backs...





He said he didn't know what he was thinking with this paint job. But hey it was the 60's.

I don't even know whats going on here. Trick shifter and is that a sprung hub on a swing arm bike. Whats with the rocker boxes.
 
#173 ·
Re: Pay backs...

When i said this Dick is a perfectionist. I lost track but I think he has been developing a head light bracket for the cafe racer for ten days. Four days plus with a hand file and half a day with the file on the flat side of the steel..!? He sees things I can't.
 
#174 ·
Re: Pay backs...

When i said this Dick is a perfectionist. I lost track but I think he has been developing a head light bracket for the cafe racer for ten days. Four days plus with a hand file and half a day with the file on the flat side of the steel..!? He sees things I can't.
that is why he is the master and you are the grasshopper. learn it while you can then pass it on while you can.
 
#195 · (Edited)
Re: Pay backs...

Any chance of seeing a pix of the sailboat he lives/lived on? Tell me it's not an old wood "Concordia!"


This is where he lives year round. As much as he likes a woody he got this fiber one for a steal and then redid it. Altho he views it as a sin that a blacksmith is living on a fiberglass sail boat. So he plans to build and weld himself up a 30 something foot steel hull sailboat and sail away.
I have seen the plans.:eek:
 
#187 ·
Re: Pay backs...

Great video!!!...I thank you for taking the time in presenting that to everyone here...this has been one of the best threads I've ever followed here on the JJ...

Your continuing updates are most certainly appreciated...

Larry in MD
 
#188 ·
Re: Pay backs...

I guess my nickname says it all. And then and 'Wow' to it....

Btw, if there would ever be a need to make a book about this man, then the pictures are in this thread. Dolce, dunno if you're photographer, but I think you do some pretty fine photography.
 
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