I always pay attention to the little things on bikes so it is no surprise that I wanted little details on my bike that will make it stand apart from the rest, and it is also the reason I chose Ryan to do the work. All of his bikes have carefully been crafted and I knew he would take great care while helping me build the bike that I have wanted for years.
He started in with the battery tray and although my last battery worked it was far from pretty. Ryan got to work and machined a nice aluminum tray with an aluminum strap that ran across the top of it and mounted it right behind the BAKER tranny.
We put the front wheel on with the Metzeler tires and got the dual disc ISR brake calipers set-up. We had very little clearance on this 35mm front end and swapped the lowers so we could clear all the mounts, it looks pretty slick.
Right around this time I started talking with my buddy Kirk Taylor at Custom Design Studios about paint. I have never had a nice paint job but I knew that he would be the one to do it; he has done some killer stuff and has built some great bikes as well. I knew it had to be red and I had some ideas. Kirk also mentioned that he was working with DuPont paint and that they were looking for a motorcycle for their display at SEMA. I told him we would have it done and let Ryan know about our deadline. We had just been doing what we could up until this point but now we had a firm deadline, Nov. 1st so we had to start moving.
Ryan was up to the challenge and for a guy who is in to cars, trucks and bikes; I was amazed that he had never gone to SEMA. Now he was going to have a vehicle featured, as long as it got done in time. There was a flurry of activity at the shop. Ryan cut out a seat pan as soon as we got the rear fender with struts figured out. Ryan machined the struts and then got the seat pan tabs mounted.
He cut the pan with his plasma cutter then started pounding on it to get the right shape. I wanted it small but to also have enough curve to hold me on without sliding backwards. We got the pan done and I sent it out to Paul Cox. I had spoken with Paul in Sturgis and asked if he would do my seat, he said he would so I was stoked. So far I hadn’t needed to make any compromises, I thought I might have to on the seat, but Paul said to send him the pan.
I needed to start amassing some of the essential parts for the build. I ordered a kickstand and started to hunt for a muffler online.
I really liked the D&D one that Dar uses on his Brass Balls Bobbers so I sent out an email and the next thing I knew I had a matte black muffler in my hand. It looked perfect up against the bike.
I also went out and bought a spotlight from HD that looked small enough to fit the narrow front-end. I asked Ryan if he could make a headlight bezel to which he had his normal response, “we could do that.”
Ryan started buttoning up all the little things he could on the frame before it got sent to Kirk for paint. After I picked up a coil, Ryan welded up the mounts and Kirk suggested I send it to him with the tins so he could paint it the same color as my bike.
These are the little things that, never having built a bike before, I would never think of but they make all the difference. We wanted to give Kirk a month to do the paint so we were getting down to the wire. Ryan knocked out some great mid controls that matched the lines of the bike and Gard of LACC hooked me up with a small Buell master cylinder. We decided to wait to do the exhaust until we had the exact tranny that was going to be used, but we did machine and weld up an exhaust mount on the frame. Ryan did however; machine the exhaust flanges and rings.
After all the finish welds were made on the frame it was time to do a final mock up. It went so fast and when we finally had a rolling bike that looked like a bike, everything seemed real.
Then we tore it down completely. I made a crate for the frame and sheet-metal only to be denied because it was too heavy. I decided to cut it down and mail the sheet-metal separately. It cost a ton but it got to Kirk on time.
I then took all my steel parts to Denver to get them chromed. I am not a fan of flash but it was going to get brushed. They are a bumper company and although the chroming wasn’t great, it did the trick for what I needed. I spoke with Kirk and he assured me he would get the frame to us before he left for Mexico for a little R&R. You’ll have to wait and see what happened with paint and final assembly until next installment.
