It's a Thursday night after a harried day of grappling with the news. I'm pissed and waiting impatiently for a glass of Jack and a single ice cube. The phone rang and hot breath and a wispy evil tone shattered my melancholy mood. “Where's the second segment on our first Lucky Devil model build?”
A chill ran down my spine, like the chill of an ice fisherman who dropped through his thin frozen deck into a watery grave. Suddenly my mouth went dry, “I,I,I…” I attempted a lame excuse.
“No fuckin' excuses,” the voice came like a series of death nails hammered to a coffin ledge.
I knew immediately that it was the Lucky Devil himself and I needed to move. “Consider it done,” I said trembling, and the phone went dead. I was lost, but knew what to do. Most of the staff at the shop were cool including the fabricator Kent and his wife Holly. Even Rigid Frame Richard, their photog, was okay unless young women like Pia were around to distract him. But once in a while something sparked evil from inside the workshop. I just tried to play it cool and talk to Kent. I called him quick.
“Here's some shots of the front render for Lucky Devil 001,” Kent said. “It is a single side mount to keep the right side clean. At this point everything is out to paint and I am working on the frame and sheet metal for the chop off. I can't show photos of that till after the event, but I will document the construction of the frame as well as sheet metal and final assembly and share them after the event is over.”Â
“The front fender material is 14 gauge steel,” Kent explained. “It is a stampedfender blank that will be available on our web site soon. The brake caliperis a cool place to hang the front fender on a Springer so you don't need tobuild a floating front fender assembly. The clearance never changes as it isconnected to the axle via the caliper assembly. the only modification I doto the caliper is on the caliper mounting bracket.
“From the manufacturer thecaliper bracket has a little too much slop in some cases and can be reducedby turning down the inner sleeve. Kent explained. “It is important not to take off too muchmaterial so it will continue to hinge properly. It is better to have toomuch slop than not enough in this case. The top of the tire clearance can befrom 1/4 to 1/2-inch. I recommend 1/2-inch for anything that is intended to be puton the road regularly.”
“Side clearance is also important as the fender willmove side to side just a bit due to the slop in the caliper mountingbracket,” Kent said. “For this fender I used 3/16-inch solid round bar for the fender trim(this is cosmetic and I don't always use it ).”
“As for the fender mounting materialit is .065 wall 1/2-inch o.d. seamless tubing I use this to keep the weight downand it is plenty strong enough to hold the fender in place,” Kent said. “I used the TIGwelding process on this fender.”
“For the past seven years I rarely useanything but the TIG process, which is funny for me, because in my first fiveyears, as a professional welder/fabricator, I rarely used anything but theMIG process even when it came to aluminum, but as I got into more exoticmaterials such as titanium, magnesium, and so on, I used the TIG process moreand more. Then as I discovered more about the wonders of TIG welding such asbetter temperature control and penetration. I fell in love with the process andrarely consider mig welding.”
“The fabrication of this fender from start tofinish took me about eight hours,” Kent said. “For the first time out on this Iwould expect it to take more like twelve hours, but for some reason, it rolled along quickly. I guess I was Lucky.”
“Here's another one I made. This one is done with a modified stock front fender,” Kent said. “This is a good way to go since they are so light and they have the edge rolled over and it only needs trimming on the front and back. I reshape the front of stock fenders, so I always trim them on the under side to give it some body.”Â
“It's hard to see,” Kent said, “but I molded a devil tail in to the fender at the bottom but for some reason I can't seem to get a good shot of it.”
Okay, I'm off the hook for a couple of days, until the next batch of photos are slipped under the door. Then the pressure will surface, and I know the Devil's watchin' me.
–Bandit Â
