Basil's Douglas

[Diecast]

I've joined this forum to enlist the help of the experts!

I found an old photo of my grandfather, Basil, from ~1924 and would appreciate some help in identifying the bike. I understand that it is a very grainy photo, but characteristics I can identify, such as the shape of the downtube, tank decals, belt drive and angle of the stand and rear racks, lead me to think that it is a Douglas 2 3/4hp model. A trip to the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham has reinforced my conviction of this. But I now want to reach out to this community for help in identifying more details. I am already finding that there is a lot of variety in many of the components!

I have been riding and restoring bikes for over 30 years. All vintage machines (1970's onwards), but nothing of this age. Not sure what I plan to do with what I learn, and I certainly don't have the means to invest in owning the real thing, but I am a sucker for telling a great story that is interesting and has a human aspect. Perhaps I'll capture my journey via the medium of video to share with others. I am a product designer with access to 3D CAD software, so have already starting to build a detailed digital model of a Douglas 2 3/4hp. 
 
Any help will be gratefully received.

Dai

  

[karri]

I cant help much, but the forks changed (i want to say 1919) and this pic looks to be the earlier style fork blades. Also i think the frame, at the neck has the triangulating reinforcement that the later models went away from. So the bike i think would be a bit earlier model than the photo date. 

[Diecast]

Thanks, Karri. Pre 1919 would seem right, as Basil was under 20 in the photo and worked as a porter on the railway, so it seems unlikely that he could afford a new machine. I was aware that this model played a large part in WW1, and many were shipped back to be refurbished and resold to civilians. I wondered whether it could be one of them, like the picture below.

Any chance you can point me in the direction of picture of the forks you mentioned?

[karri]

Excuse my poor markup in Paint, but hopefully that helps highlight the differences I was looking at.

[Diecast]

That's great. Appreciate the effort in marking up the photo.
This confirms that I'm heading in the right direction with my CAD model.
Let me know if you can see anything obviously incorrect.