Building A Chopper With SidecarJon and Horse Part Five, from Chopper to Scrapture

Remember Horse?, the chopper I was building with the remains of a crashed Kawasaki KLR 650?
Anyone wondering what actually happened to that project?, well, just in case you were, a quick update.

Horse got as far as being a very nearly complete bike, but lack of time and finance meant something had to give, all the good bits got sold and the frame, fuel tank and a few other bits that I wasnt happy to pass on got recycled and have recently been coming back to life as a SCRAPTURE which WILL get finished soon!
Anyway, here's some pictures of the almost finished Horse chopper and the very nearly finished scrapture
I loved the way Horse turned out, not to everyones taste, but a change from most of the custom bikes you see, pity I don't still have it, but you can't keep everything and I'm pleased with the way the remains are coming along

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Building a chopper with Sidecarjon and Horse part three:- axle plates

The axle plates have arrived, and they are perfect!

I designed them, then took my drawings to Graeme at

 Smith Metal Fabrications ltd where they were made up.

Ive used this company before for small jobs,and have always been very happy with the results.

In the case of my axle plates, they managed to squeeze the manufacturing of them into a very busy work schedule and still provide a top quality item.

It's rare  to find a local company that although busy will take the time to do small jobs for someone such as myself working on a small project these days.

The quality of their work speaks for itself, and their prices are very fair, I would highly recommend them.

The plates themselves are precision cut from 10mm steel plate, nice and strong!

They are different from most axle plates due to the tag at the rear, the intention is that the plates will slot inside the existing swinging arm and the original wheel spindle plus two additional threaded bars will  hold everything tightly in position whilst welding thereby  minimising  distortion from the heat produced.

Here they are slotted loosely in place to give an idea of how it will all work.

When I am ready to weld the new tubes in place, the wheel spindle bolt will go through the hole to its right, pinning the plates in place and two threaded bars will go in the place of the spindle slot in the new plate, preventing any sideways movement from the heat of welding.

Once the top and bottom rails (bottom rails not shown) are welded in place, the swinging arm will be slid forward and removed then the tags will be cut off leaving a nice tidy stretched rigid rear section 

After that, its just a matter of adding bracing and gusset plates (heavy ones in this case as the bike will eventually grow a sidecar!)

Building a chopper part two, thoughts on welding

It may be a while 'til my axle plates are ready, so I thought I'd write a little about how I plan to nail the beast together

My intention is to MIG weld the new rear frame together, there are a number of reasons for this as follows

1 (and most importantly) I know how to mig weld properly, in my case this means I've been trained to a relatively high standard.
( understanding the theory and being capable of putting it into practice is essential when working on structural components, metal fatigue fractures can move at several metres a second!)

2 mig welding equipment is relatively cheap ( I do mean relatively, buying the cheapest hobby welder you can find isn't the way to go, you get what you pay for, a better quality welder will yield better results every time)
I use the most powerful Clarke welder that a domestic power supply can cope with, it's a very good welder

3 I already own the equipment I plan to use

A lot of people prefer to use TIG welding, and if you have the knowledge and access to the relevant equipment that's great, it's probably the most common system used professionally
Personally, I've never had the opportunity to learn TIG, so MIG it shall be.

As a side note, MIG is a good place to start for someone wanting to learn how to weld, RELATIVELY cheap(see above) and RELATIVELY simple to learn (note RELATIVELY!)

Of course, someone just learning won't be trying to construct frames from scratch, not unless they're bored of living, that'd come under the heading of 'A VERY BAD IDEA'

There are drawbacks when using MIG, it produces a very high, localised heat which can cause significant distortion as the metal expands and if allowed to cool too fast, brittle welds can occur, this would be A VERY BAD THING on a frame!

Luckily, there's a simple solution to this, heating up not just the area being worked on but further out as well until the metal just begins to glow yellow and then immediately welding will minimise distortion and allow the metal to cool slower.
Another good idea is to weld evenly (ie doing both top tubes rather than doing both tubes on the right)
The logic for this is that any distortion should be equal, minimising the chances of pulling the wheels out of line( another very bad thing when it comes to motorcycles!)

Ok, so now I'm impatient to begin, where are my axle plates??!!

Bikers Kitchen

Possibly the best place to build your next project, the kitchen, it's warm, there's a fridge for beer, a freezer for parts that need shrinking, an oven for heating parts up ,a table to put the engine on during rebuild time and a sink for degreasing parts not to mention easy access to coffee and food!

In fact, the only possible downside is the potential for a 'what the bloody hell is that bloody heap of scrap doing in my kitchen' reaction from an intolerant life partner.
There is, however, a way around this problem.
Your first sentence is the one that really matters, 'my love, I just wanted to make YOU something special, but there's nowhere to work on YOUR bike outside in the snow and rain, besides, I didn't want your pride and joy to go rusty'

If all is well, work can commence and you can artfully bring your own project into the kitchen in due course( hence the two bikes in the picture)

If this approach is unsuccessful, I suggest either moving the build into the front room or getting a less unreasonable life partner!

Our beloved Harley Davidson Road King is for sale (located in Wales)

here she is, our beautiful Road King, she has never let us down and we love her dearly, but alas, she has to go!
She's a 2007 model which has benefitted from the addition of a Hyper Charger and vance and Hines pipes (all professionally set up on a dynamometer by Mayor's Motorcycles)
It also has a complete quick detach touring kit including two different rear racks, a tour pack, two different sized screens(standard and extra tall) and clib on leg shields(not that we ever need them,  it never ever rains here in wales,  ahem, coff)

the handlebars have also been swapped, all the wiring now runs through them and it has been fitted with replacement stainless control lines etc.

It's not showroom mint, it gets used all year round, but it is very, very good, only one owner before us and has been professionally serviced using good quality components (eg Lucas OIl)

She's only covered seventeen thousand miles, and could be yours more ten and a half thousand pounds including a new MOT.

The price ISN'T negotiable, but I might take a much cheaper part ex, be it bike (bmw?, Vmax?, 1200 Bandit?, WHY?) or car(and by car, I mean a PROPER car, Jeep, Cadillac, why?, something INTERESTING!)
oh yes, all the original bits are also included in the sale

Sketch Art

This is a sketch I made from a photograph of my Harley Davidson Road King, I've added it to a few products in my shop which can be seen by clicking  HERE.
i will be doing a lot moe of this style of work when time allows
If anyone has something that they would like to see rendered in similar style, be it bikes, places, anything really, contact me, provide a photo to work from and I can make a print on paper for an agreed price, alternatively I can add the finished design to a variety of different products in my shop where you can simply buy what you want.
If it's added to my shop, I need to be clear whether you are happy for it to be visible to and buyable by the public at large, or whether it's something personal and private

Chopper gods !

Click here to see where I sell my own artwork on various things-my favourite at the moment is the Anubis as chopper god design.
 Loosely mimicking the art style of ancient Egypt, this piece was originally a tongue in cheek sketch that I made for my partner which then progressed to a painting which seemed popular with a number of people.