Title: Justin’s Trophy
by Wrench
photos by Sin Wu
There’s a party weekend in Charlotte each year that culminates in a Sunday gathering and a grand bike show. The humid weekend escape was created five years ago by Mike Pullin a member of the Charlotte H-D team, after his son, Justin, died of asthma complications while Mike was on a run. Mike discovered, that the American Lung Association created camps for educating asthma inflicted kids, parents and friends on how to deal with lung associated complications. With the correct information, used promptly at the proper time, kids can survive asthma attacks readily and live long healthy lives. This crucial knowledge is critical for kids, so Mike kicked off this party weekend to support the learning camps and make a hearty donation to the American Lung Association program. For two years Bandit was the proud grand marshal of this event, “Bikernet will support and sponsor this weekend for as long as Mike’s involved,” Bandit said recently after a three-day drunk. This year Bandit couldn’t attend, but got a call from Mike’s better half, Meanest, who also works at the dealership. “Bandit,” She said in distinctive southern slippery words that slid through the receiver and lingered on his ear lobes, like butter running off the side of a stack of pancakes, “honey, since you can’t make it to the event, I would sure appreciate it if you would make us a special trophy for the Best of Show Class.”
Could Bandit turn her down? There’s no way he could muster the heartless nature to deny this woman and or the event that means so much to this bikin’ community. Besides, he had recently purchase a new Millermatic 175 MIG welder and needed the practice.
“Of course, baby,” he said into the phone to her glee. He pondered a variety of Rube Goldberg art objects, turned trophies at last year’s HORSE Smoke-Out. Hackasaw welded various motorcycle parts together, then chromed the H-D part number trophies and presented them to Edge, the show promoter. The winners were dazzled by the creative nature of the trophies and the deft construction and welding abilities.
Bandit was challenged. Could he weld a myriad of ring gears, clutch hubs and connecting rods together to create a 50 pound tribute to the Best Of Show Bike? He was perplexed. He brought up his pappy, a big surly bastard who ran a machine shop for a nationwide oil well testing company. The man welded oil derricks together, if needed, during his 40-years in the oil fields. His law of welding was, “Never lose the bead,” he grumbled and reveled in vast deep burn wounds, “even if you catch fire. Just keep welding, someone will put you out.” Bandit watched him as a kid, arc weld with bare hands, the slag sizzling on the back of his hands. He wouldn’t flinch until the job was done. “Boot tough and rattlesnake mean,” David Mann, the artist, said about Bandit’s dad.
Bandit’s dad made some of the finest metal art sculptures I’ve ever had the privilege of viewing. He handled iron like a sculptor molds clay. With his artistic tradition in mind Bandit went to work. He’s been welding for 30 years, off and on. Back in the 70s he made towel racks with worn out chains. Door knobs were brazed tranny gears and cam shafts. There were motorcycle kitchen utensils that never wore out.
He scratched my thinning hair and faced the project at hand. A long shoreman, who stops by the headquarters from time to time, delivered chunks of iron and steel. Bandit planned a new steel-based fence made out of angle iron, solid steel spikes, corrugated steel sheets and old bike wheels for the headquarters. We’ll report on that later. The —– Union man recently brought dropped off a 6-foot length of 6-inch diameter, scrap steel tubing. It was Bandit’s inspiration. He decided to form the leather jacketed arm of a man holding a wheel for the world to see.
We started the project by cutting the steel tubing with a reciprocating saw then split it down the middle with a cutting torch. Bandit dug out his HA leather shirt and studied the cuff and cut of the forearm. He needed heat like a blacksmith. He cut a wedge out of the tubing with the torch then created a stand for his rose bud torch tip, which you can see in the back of some of these shots. With that blasting away and a set of vice grips firmly clamped to the tubing he began pounding the red hot mild steel until he blacksmithed the desired shape. Another portion of the rusty tubing was used for the buttoned placket.
Here’s the beginning of the segment built base and a mild-steel ring Bandit decided to use for the rim. He has a dozen of these rings, he’s carried and moved from place to place for 20 years. It’s about time he found a use for them.
While hunting through a metal supply joint, Bandit discovered pressed segments of steel scattered around the concrete deck and hit up one of the workers. The biker looked both ways and let Bandit bag a bunch of punched out hole segments. You can order a sheet of steel with holes pressed into it without drilling. Massive presses snap round shapes out of the material with immense strength. Some were an inch thick. They’re like thick, mild steel, quarters, dimes and fifty-cent pieces. He used them to form my base, then welded them together with the Miller MIG welder. He also used various sized segments to form the initial shape of the hand. After the base for the palm was welded together, he began to fill and shape the muscles of a hand with beads of weld. He made the wrist long enough to protrude deep into the sleeve or be adjusted to fit.
The process continued from weekend to weekend. The Bikernet schedule is hectic and a stack of articles, to be written edited and prepared for posting, grew. If Bandit was missing from his desk, we immediately checked to see if sparks were flying in the garage. In the old days he found time behind a doobie to lose himself in the flame of a cutting torch. “It was actually a good feeling to disappear in the quiet cubicle of steel and wail away,” Bandit mumbled. One afternoon he snuck out of the headquarters and dug through drawers to find just the right hub nut for the trophy wheel. He bought some 1/8-inch diameter brazing rod for spokes and went to work building the wheel. The rods are labeled bronze, yet to Bandit they’re brass. With the wheel set aside and the sleeve MIG welded to the base, the hand was the difficult sculpture’s task ahead.
Time is at a premium at the headquarters. Yet Bandit attempted to carve out an afternoon for Trophy progress. A Saturday afternoon availed itself and he hauled ass to the garage, but as he snapped on the Miller MIG his weld sputtered unnaturally. He double-checked the setting on the dinky 50-pound tank filled with Argon and Carbon Dioxide (75%-25%). It was next to empty. Two more beads and welding was shut down for the rest of the day.
The headquarters went into red alert for an Argon refill. It was after noon on a Saturday–welding supply joints were closed… There was hell to pay until Monday.
With a new gas supply torqued into place, he went after the hand like Frankenstien forming the monster. He welded long flowing beads, then yanked off my welding glove to inspect the lines and curves of his right hand. Back and forth he poured long beads of mild steel in patterns to mirror a fortune teller’s image of his palm. With a satisfactory underside region “in hand”, he turned the 10-pound claw over and began to work the wrist area. Then it dawned on the big bastard, “I better bend this sonuvabitch,” Bandit growled, “before I started forming the back of the hand and knuckles.”
The tough part was bending the hand. Some of the elements were almost 1-inch thick. Bandit used vice-grips and chunks of pipe wrapped around the massive fingers to pull the palm into shape. He yanked, snarled, lurched and beat it with a ballpeen hammer. He broke digits off and had to re-weld them, but with the garage fuming with steaming sweat and the heat of red hot chunks of steel, it began to take shape.
Finally, Bandit started to fill in the back of the hand and build the knuckles. MIG welding is like working in a lightless tunnel. You can’t see shit until you strike an arc. Then you can only view about a 1/4-inch radius circle from where the wire is feeding. You can slow your progress, or weave in the same area, but while you’re trying to find your bearing or direction, you’re building a puddle of metal. Your mind must fixate on the position of the wire and give guidance immediately to your hand, as the wire feed won’t stop and allow you to check out the situation. The more he worked with the excellent MIG machine, the more he adjusted his sight to see ahead and understand the form or shape he was searching for.
The monster’s hand took form and he studied every element for needed filling and shaping. The wheel actually slipped between the thumb and forefinger effortlessly and seemed to fit snugly, as if the monster had come to life and knew its mission was to clutch the ultimate symbol of motorcycling forever more. The wrist fit neatly in the sleeve and Bandit welded it into an everlasting position and then welded the wheel.
Bandit was fortunate to have several true, trained artist, who are life long friends, and are only to happy to tell him when his design is shit. Nuttboy, who teaches art at several colleges and Chris Kallas, a biker artist who’s work is for sale in the Bikernet gulch, risked their lives, to stick their heads in our garage from time to time. Nuttboy told Bandit to go wild with the buttons he planned for the lapel of the sleeve. He pondered polished brass nuts, but while working on the King, discovered a couple of chromed license plate skulls with 1/4-20 studs on the back. He drilled and taped the holes. The skulls fit neatly into place. It was beginning to take shape.
Bandit contacted “Meanest” and requested the exact wording, she requested engraved into the trophy for the Best of Show recipient. She dictated each word to him, in no uncertain terms. May Ling, the new girl, feverishly hauled ass to the San Pedro trophy barn where she ordered a brushed brass plate engraved in black. It took the trophy bastard longer to computer-engrave a 2-inch piece of brass than it took Bandit to hand make the goddamn trophy.
Bandit asked his artist friends for finish input. He had a chrome credit and considered show chrome. Chrome has strange effects on various objects. It reflects the world, which works for custom parts, but often not on sculptures. Nuttboy again stepped up to the plate, since Chris sensed an evil spirit in Bandit’s seaweed green eyes, each time he lit the torch. Nuttboy suggested Bandit leave the corrosion-covered sleeve alone and bead-blast or wire brush the hand and base to give those areas a variety of treatments. He sorta took his Ph.D. advice. He polished the wheel and spokes, then wire-brushed the hand and the base.
When it came to the sleeve, he learned something about MIG welding. There are anti-splatter sprays to prevent slag from sticking to the welded surface and to the MIG tip. He hadn’t experienced this treatment, so the trophy was scattered with small beads of weld. He couldn’t leave the steel leather sleeve alone. He wire brushed it, but only to remove the slag. The rusty hue and the varied corroded pits remained.
Finally he dug through the garage box of spray cans for a heavy clear coat. He discovered Rust-oleum gloss, metal clear and doused the trophy. After it dried he peeled the skin off the double sided tape, on the back of the engraved brass plaque, and stuck it against the welded billboard. Done deal.
Two more tasks await. Sin Wu will find a thick felt lining to be glued to the bottom to prevent the 40-pound trophy for cutting the surface of furniture. The lovely one also suggested a light be dropped in the depths of the sleeve so he will drill a hole in the back for an extension cord. We’ll post another shot of it glowing. Hang on.
For information regarding the July 27th Run For Breath contact Meanest or Mike Pullin at Harley-Davidson of Charlotte, (704) 847-4647. Don’t forget to compete for this trophy by entering your bike. Make sure you have a back-up truck to haul the trophy.
–Wrench
