T
ool & D
ie page 17
quired a '99 Roadking to work on
and play with as it had been crashed
and burned. In 2006 he came across
the `77 Superglide which he used as
the donor bike to build the bobber
from (a donor bike is used for parts
to build or modify another bike).
Recently he picked up a '71 FLH out
of state in fairly nice condition. He's
contemplating an original restora-
tion on that bike.
The chopper Dave built 1
st
was quite
the looker. Unfortunately, it wasn't
quite what he wanted and it wasn't
long before he had it on the market.
I asked him why he wasn't satisfied
with the bike and his response was,
"Actually, I was very happy with the
end product. I saw the bike recently
and I still think that it's one of the
better looking choppers in the area.
The problem was that the chop-
per that I built wasn't the bike that
I wanted to build. It seemed like
overnight the market flooded with
long bikes which made the bike less
desirable to me. I made the deci-
sion to tame the bike down to
make it more marketable when
the time came to sell it. The bike
that I wanted to build was a little
more hardcore."
I previously stated that to build
your own bike requires patience,
among other things. Dave's
chopper took 3 years to build,
which was ok considering he still
had his Softail to ride. Since it
was his 1st build, a lot of time
went into researching online to
learn the ins and outs of the proj-
ect. He assembled it and rode it
the 1st year with just a flat black
primer paint job. That winter he
broke it back down to send the
tins for paint. In my opinion, the
flat black primer just looked cool
as hell!
Specs on the chopper were as
follows:
· Redneck
Engineering
drop-seat rigid frame 6" up
4" out
· 8" over Pro One forks
· 113 ci Ultima motor, Crane
ignition, 6 speed Roadmax
tranny, 3" BDL open beltdrive
· Revtec Pulsar rims
· Jesse James Villian tank
· Russ Wernimont fender
The bobber only took half the time,
but was much more labor intensive
as almost every piece of that bike
has been modified in some way. His
brother, Steve, is a machinist and
helped out with some bad-ass ma-
chine work. The brass "old fashion
bathtub" handlebar risers were the
inspiration for the entire build. He's
added several other brass pieces such
as modifying a brass part from an old
boat to use as an air cleaner. The sui-
cide shift, a hand shifter on the bike,
also has a brass knob. He finished
it up with the gold and black paint
using a very heavy metal flake in the
gold, giving it a nice "old school"
look.
Continued on Pg. 18