Ken Sprayson, who passed away recently at the age of 94, will always be remembered by TT competitors from the 50s to the late 90s as the man to go to when needing welding jobs doing no matter how big or small.
Ken carried out a free welding service in various tempory workshops around Douglas performing his wizardry with a welding torch for any competitor in trouble. You joined the usually long queue of people carrying exhaust pipes, tanks, frames etc and waited your turn to be attended to. Everyone received the same expert service whether superstar or also ran.
Ken’s skills in chassis design were called upon by many high profile figures in racing over the years including Geoff Duke who when signing for Gilera in the early 50s took Ken to the factory in Italy to help produce a featherbed type frame for the then very bad handling 500 four.
Ken also designed and built a frame for Mike Hailwood's 500 Honda that Mike was to ride in non-championship meetings in 1968. He was also involved with John Surtees and Jeff Smith.
Outside racing Ken was heavily involved with the then flourishing British motorcycle industry with frame design for Norton, Royal Enfield, BSA and Triumph among others. But one of his most incredible achievements was being part of the team which built the Thrust II jet car which, driven by Richard Noble, set up a new land speed record of 650.88mph in 1983 in Nevada Black Rock Desert.
After his retirement Ken continued to attend the TT Races until quite recently where he was a great friend and supporter of the TT Riders Association and spent a lot of time in their 38th Milestone headquarters reliving his long career with the many visitors. For those not lucky enough to have been there Kens book, The Frame Man, published in 2012 is well worth a read.
