Classic motorcycles, custom motorcycles and cafe racers. E x i l e. Wrenchmonkees. Gallery. NewChopperBuildersHandbook. Billy Lane's Choppers Inc. Making Fender Struts with Special '79. Okay, it's time to tackle fender mounting on your project, but you want the finished assembly to be rock solid.
Can't blame you for that. In this installment of ChopCult Metal Shop, guest fabricator Jason Roche at Special '79 attacks the problem with customary skill. Class is now in session. The materials for these struts can vary, but my choice for these struts is to use 304 stainless, 5/16”-18 x 1” threaded bungs and matching counterbore bungs for allen head cap bolts available at Lowbrow Customs. I believe they even sell a complete kit that includes everything you need for this project. I’ll be using a TIG welder to weld these struts but you can chose a MIG or gas setup if you’re more comfortable with that. The first thing you need to do is to determine the connection points where you’ll want to bolt the struts. At this point, I cut one of the 5/16”-18 x 1” bungs in half and turn down one side in the lathe to ½” in diameter and 1/8” in depth.
Making a Sissy Bar with Zac Doom. The premier issue of Show Class magazine had a righteously simple and to-the-point How-to article by Zach from Heavy.
We thought it would be cool to share it on here, since building one should be within about anyone's reach as long as you have access to a torch and a welder. For less than a case of beer, you can end up with a tidy addition to your bike that makes packing your outlaw freedom kit easier and of course, classier. Thanks, Zach and Show Class for sharing the feature. So you need a sissy bar for that up-coming road trip...? This is for the regular Joe who wants freedom - backpacks and shit strapped to the bars don’t help the freedom factor, man.
Find a good welding surface and lay/ set bolts where the OG sissy bar you’re using as a template bends. Kevin wanted his sissy bar 6’ tall - this is what inspired the whole “custom” height, and got the ball rolling on this project. Line up the pieces in the jig to get an idea of what’s gonna happen in the end. How to: Make your own custom length cables - Greatest Hits. Figured id share this here - i agree we need more tech / build stuff - only one way thats going to happen - we post it....a friend of mine asked me to show him how to make up cables so he didnt have to either pay out for custom cables or have yards of spare on his bike.its fairly self explanitory, but like all stuff - if nobody has ever told you then its a black art.i buy the longest universal cables available and cut em down [specific brake or clutch, get the right thickness]solder and bakers fluid - dont use fluxcore its not upto the job use a propper old fashioned soldering iron not a pissy little electric thing feed the cable through the nipple and splay the ends out so i cant fall / pull out heat from the side with the soldering iron - for this job you dot need to put solder directly onto the iron.
Sportster Bobber. A blog that’s caught my eye recently is GasCap, run by Spaniard Alex Ramon.
Alex has now sent in details of his Sportster bobber, built by Lluís Ibañez Casabon of L.A. Motorcycles in Barcelona. I’d never have guessed, but this machine is based on a 2006-model Sportster 883 Low. The retro bobber flavor is helped by a custom tank from Salinas Boys, pre-War Harley VL style springer forks, and a matching Phantom headlight. The rear suspension is considerably more modern, with 11” shocks from Progressive Suspension, nestling alongside a “Flat Bob” rear fender and a replica pre-War taillight. Avon Speedmaster tires on 16” rims complete the look.