Your views on choppers

[Skratch]

Sounds like a great father son project that the son would enjoy as much as the father, maybe more.

Thats kinda what I was thinking.

My son is only 10 now. He helps when I do stuff on the cars and bikes. Figured it would be great bonding time. Maybe someday it would be his.

 

[NEWHD74FAN]

tlyoungb I'm sure you could weld a few tabs on a frame, there's so much out there now a days, it's not like the old days when you had to fabricate every little piece yourself all though after you get started you would be surprised what you would come up with. I had the honor to work with Berry Wardlaw back in the early 90's, he taught me everything on the motorcycle comes from the earth, there's nothing you can't fabricate. Those were words of wisdom. You build the chopper with your minds eye, then make it work. You see a lot of bikes people call choppers, if they have shocks they are custom motorcycles not choppers, if you don't need the part to make the bike run it's not on a chopper. Built the whole bike first before you do any molding or paint, then when you got it where you want it, tear it all back apart and do all the cosmetics, because things change along the way while you're building or you just had more fun then you should have in the 60's and forgot something, like me.

Chopper is this Berry Wardlaw?

Found this website,
Berry Wardlaw. The Wild Pan Man. at Cyril Huze Blog

 

[Chopper]

Yep, he was directly reasonable for me getting hired at my first stealership and taught me everthing I don't know. Now he's building everything from the ground up in his own shop, him and a partner of mine, Duffy lives about 50 miles north of me who also worked in Fairbanks at the same stealership and now has his own shop, Duffy done the head work on the pan that Berry set the world panhead speed record a couple of years back in the salt flats. Makes me proud to call them friends and have em for teachers. Got some pic's of berry and his race team on my web page under friends and their bikes, yes he also had the fastest bike in the state of Alaska back in the 90's. Berry's dog even held the land speed record in the salt flats for the world fastest dog, he liked ridding with Berry.

 

[kicker]

The best way to learn is go hands on. My father brought me into the mix when I was just little. The 45 to the side was my tribute to him and my first complete ground up build. You fine that nothing is yours unless you are the first one to ride it. Get your basic picture of what you want and if you dont know how to do it or make it work pick up a book or find someone who does and start trading words. From the short time I have been on this site it seems like you are all ready to a good start by just asking the first questions of where to start.

 

[Randall K. Wilson]

I think choppers are very cool and interesting. However since I am an old buzzard of 57, I actually like the older type...more the original/traditional type chopper as such. When you take a old worn out Harley and transform it into a beautiful chopped machine.

The new ones that people call choppers such as OCC,:newsmile093: really don't seem like a true chopper to me. Reason: they really have not been "chopped".:laugh Moreso these machines are assembled from a stack of components.

A number of years ago I was watching TV and seen this Jesse James guy make a gas tank from a peice of flat sheetmetal. Now that was totally impressive. Much more impressive than when one of his pitbull dogs killed another of his pitbull dogs one night when the shop was empty. To me that could have been left out of the script. Particually Jesse's attitude about the whole dog killing incident was really strange, as I recall.:newsmile055:

 

[bikerfishman]

I built this one last year for a customer and with any custom it took allot of fabricating, all the parts were catalog bought but making part A fit with part B is a whole nother story, nothing ever fits the way it should or if it does would not look right to my eye so more fabing would be necessary.

Total time on this was just under a month with internal wiring in the frame.
IMO it was nice to look at but being use to baggers it was a trip to ride.

I think if you were new to building bikes you might want to get some old easy rider magazines from the 70's and early 80's to get some idea's.

 

[sharpscuba]

I have been tossing the idea around myself. My Son is off to war right now and I have been thinking about sellling my boat and building him a old school hard tail. He will get my classic when the time comes so....

 

[larryjmiller]

Go to "Big Lots" store. You can buy their book for $3. After you wade through the gobelty gook. there are some good pics near the back of the book. Not sure it's worth $3 but what da hek?