I’m damn fortunate to have a hobby that I not only enjoy doing, but that people enjoy buying. I get to build bikes and sooner or later, someone comes around to purchase it, making it possible to finance yet another project. And so the vicious circle continues.
This has been the cycle for several years now. Plus, getting to work with my good friend, Roger, at Kustomfab, is definitely an incentive. Living on an island does have its drawbacks at times. I’m not talking about the sun beaming down nearly 24/7, or being surrounded by crystal blue water, or being less than an hour away from nearly everything. The drawbacks of living on an island have everything to do with the resources most guys need to build a bike. We don’t have the same luxuries that people building bikes on the mainland have. Finding that right part can be a lot harder than it looks.
Fortunately, the Internet attempts to take care of most of my resource problems, making the options virtually limitless. This new bike is a collaboration with my friend in Boston, who owns a shop called World Class Welding. His name is Dave, a.k.a. “Tigman.” I have been corresponding with “Tigman” for several years now and he has been kind enough to trade some bike building tips and even enlighten me with some tin bending skills.
I have been more familiar with working with thick metals of 1/4-inch and above. The tin benders specialize in working with all the metals below that thickness. So when it came to shrinking, stretching, and pushing metal around, “Tigman” was the guy to go to. He showed me a lot of cool stuff, from the tools I needed to keep around my shop, to the tutorials on how to get the job down.
I had the idea for this bike a while ago, but I lacked the funds needed to execute it. When things started to look up, and the pockets began to deepen, I knew the first thing I needed was the frame.
I had most of the parts planned out and ready to go. So with the list in mind, I contacted my man “Tigman, “ and we started sorting out all the details. We didn’t need any fancy CAD rendering drawings or blueprints. All we needed was a couple of sketches and a steady line of e-mails.
It’s pretty amazing how much we think alike when it comes to bikes and designs. This made the process a breeze, and as you can see I’m pretty much ready for paint before Roger steps in and takes it to a whole new level!
We'll bring you more on this build as it comes together.
