Chopper_Motorcycles_MY_OPINION

I found a couple of chopper articles that discuss choice of welding, and these seem to point to TIG as a method that injects a minimum amount of heat into the frame. For example, the constructor of a Pro-street Sportster project shown in Ozbike Issue 225 mentions that TIG is the recommended method these days for welding 4130 chromoly. Which interests me not a whit, since I've decided to use all mild steel. The Horse of May 2000 shows a fellow named Billy widening a rigid frame to take a ridiculously fat rear tyre. Working with 1020 DOM tubing, he explains "I use a TIG machine because it allows me to keep the amount of heat I am adding to the frame low. I get exceptional welds with it if I take my time and prep my materials properly, and because there is no splatter like there is with stick welders and wire-feed welders. Plus, I can't weld with a wire-feed welder to save my ass - and a TIG welder is all I have." He nearly blows his whole argument with that last sentence, but I see what he’s driving at. On the effect the welding may have had on the frame's heat-treating (as described by Bruce Palmer III last month) Moen opined "No real need for heat-treating the frame. Tubes rarely break in the middle, and you didn't mess with any of the joints. And, as Grizzy sez, thick mild steel tubing is forgiving." On Bruce Palmer III's dire warnings if you weld an oven-brazed frame, Grizzy says "he is covering his own arse by emphasizing caution - man, you know how gung-ho them Yanks get, even with a welding gun in their hands", though Grizzy does concede that technically Mr Palmer is correct with frames that were taken up to red hot for all forgings and tubings. Grizzy also mentioned that the argon shield provided by MIG/TIG prevents annealing of the joint (unlike arc) so that subsequent breakage can occur due to the surrounding metal tearing (though not the weld itself) if there is no further heat treatment. Even so, he says that is mainly a problem where the MIG/TIG has been used as a substitute for nickel-bronze on thin-walled butt-joints (which these joints are not). At the end of the day, Grizz concludes, I'm in a "suck-it-and-see" situation. However it does look like I'm on the right track in building my frame the way I have. And this from Craig – “I think you are on to it with the suck it and see bit. I think you should drill the tubes either side of the weld into the slugs, and rose weld the tubes to the slugs, this will fix the slugs outside of the weld site and make them spread the load. If you just put the slugs in and weld them at the joint there is a chance they will act as a lever point and if the frame flexes at the weld at all it will bell slightly near the end of the slug. All this is a well-documented engineering procedure. On stress-relieving after welding, I had earlier pondered the recommendation in “Custom Harley Cookbook” that one should heat the welded area with a torch and let it cool to relieve the stresses. Alternatively, Kevin Lowe tells me he always clouts the weld area several times with a hammer to get the molecules all lined up again in parade-ground fashion, but doesn’t bother with heating (though some welds he’d wrap in asbestos to make it cool slowly). Doing this to a frame can cause quite a bit of stress, apparently... (traditional chopping technique) Craig Cate has this advice – “Stress-relieving is done both ways, but the hammer is a bit harsh for thin metal tubing, dents will take away the wall strength and look bloody awful. The recognised way is to heat them and cool slowly. Each grade of metal has a correct method and temperature/time, but there is an established general practice.” Well, my tube walls are pretty thick. Maybe I’ll just clout it with the hammer a few times at each welded joint. Being straight, my joints shouldn’t be under much stress anyway. A bit different from the example shown in the “Custom Harley Cookbook”, where he’d cut the front downtubes and used a car jack to bend the top tube upwards, to make room for insertion of spacers to give the desired new stretch and rake. There’d definitely be some stresses involved in that particular exercise! Craig went on to say “One last thing occurs to me. If you are going to do all this work, ie cut and tuck, bend up parts, weld them in, etc, why not just build a frame from scratch? Not as hard as you would think.” Which is a very good question. I did my frame this way for two reasons. Firstly, I was not yet confident enough about my abilities to take on the construction of the angled joints in the main load-bearing portions of a frame. Slugging of butted tubes, on the other hand, is a piece of peez. I’ve kinda “cheated”, in the sense that all the important and really hard-to-make joints on my frame are factory joints. I have only molested this frame in places that are within my capabilities to molest. Secondly, I like the look of brazed-lug construction frames. All-welded frames didn’t really catch on until the late fifties, and they have a very modern look to them. To capture the look of a period bobber, I wanted all those funky-looking castings and attachments. Check out the seat-spring mounts and exhaust mounts on the Ariel bits of my frame. They look so much neater and “hand-crafted” than mere welded-on tabs, which is what I’d have ended up with if I’d welded up my own frame from scratch.

Chopper_Motorcycles_MY_OPINION

I’ve been thinking again. I’d earlier noticed how nostalgia for simpler times has seen the appearance lately of Softail Evo’s decked out to look like ‘40s bobbers. Tim's FrankenChief chopper taking shape. Well, I’ve just detected another interesting trend in chopperdom, this time toward appreciation of “original, unrestored” choppers. I was alerted to this by my recent purchase of the book “Chopped Harleys: 30 years of rebellious motorcycles” by John Carroll and Gary Stuart (which you can purchase right here on VI through the link to Amazon.com, and thereby cause a few more coins to jingle into the “Keep VI On-The-Air” fund). This pair of Englishmen are also responsible for one of the better coffee-table books about Indians (which can also be purchased etc. etc.). Despite the fact that it’s full of Harleys, their chopper book is not bad at all. Mr Carroll displays considerable perception and sensitivity toward his subject, perhaps owing to the fact that he’d previously built a tasty-looking bobber of his own, and built it the hard way by starting with an Army-surplus Harley 45” engine and little else. He also offers a possible explanation for the origin of apehanger handlebars, the rationale for which had so far eluded me. He says that bobber-builders always removed the crash-bars when stripping their “garbage glides”, and were usually also dissatisfied with the stock handlebars. Because aftermarket bars were still only a figment of Mr Flander’s imagination, bobber-ites would turn the crashbars upside-down, bend them around a little, and voila! Apehangers! Sound plausible? Anyway, the format of the book is to review each “stage” of chopper development, from the early bobbers through to ‘60s psychedelia to ‘70s flash, ‘80s conservatism, and the techno-billet era of the ‘90s. Problem was, almost all the representatives of earlier chopper styles were recently-built bikes that had been built in that style, using memories and photographs as a guide. Only in a couple of cases were choppers shown that were actually built during that era, and hadn’t been touched since. The authors themselves acknowledge that the main archival resources about chopper history are really only the various chopper magazines which appeared from late sixties onwards. In this regard, Easyriders recent Issue #300, which contains a photo of every main-feature bike since Issue # 1, comes in real handy to students of chopper fashion. I guess the reason for this scarcity of early chops is obvious. Chopper builders don’t respect stock configurations for bikes, so why should they respect unfashionable chopper configurations? As fads changed, bikes got torn down, disappeared into garages like a caterpillar into a chrysalis, and then re-emerged resplendent in new finery from the ground up. It means that if you’re looking for genuine period examples of particular chopper styles, then these are going to be kinda thin on the ground. Unless you stumble upon barn finds like the Sportster pictured here. Isn’t it lovely? Don’t you think it defines a whole era, a watershed in American culture? Can’t you just hear Jimi deconstructing “The Star-Spangled Banner” while a stoned flower-child squelches away through the muddy fields of Max Yasgur’s farm to where this chop stands waiting? Judging by some of the hits I get when I inject the word “chopper” into the E-bay search engine, there is a growing appreciation for “original” chops. Enough to be worth throwing in words like “classic”, and “history”, and “Americana” into the blurb to try and tempt the punters. Check out the wording of this ad for a Pan chop, with price hovering at $5555.55 after 6 bids (reserve not yet met): “You are bidding on a 1950 Harley Davidson Panhead chopper. Original Panhead engine, tranny and drive-train, Jammer rigid frame, extended Wideglide front end. Bringing us back to the simpler times of Peter Fonda in Easyrider, this 1960s style Pan chopper is a classic, unrestored piece of Americana history from days gone bye [sic].” And again, one of the responses to last month’s “Von Gill Mongrel” feature was from Grizzy, who vaguely recollected seeing Von Gill’s Chief chop in days of old at “Uncle Bunt’s Chop Shop”, though he does say that all his recollections of those days are vague. Anyway, “Uncle Bunt’s” was the establishment of one John Reed, who was England’s equivalent to “Big Daddy” Roth. Von Gill says if Grizzy’s information is true, then his bike is a piece of British chopper history! Better restore all those murals it had on it then, eh Mr Gill? Heh heh! If appreciation for “original” choppers becomes more highly developed, it will throw up the classic restorer’s dilemma – To restore, or not to restore? Twenty years ago, if you found a tatty-looking Indian Ace entombed in some former dealer’s basement, everybodys’ natural urges would have been to strip everything back and tart it up with fresh paint and chrome (or nickel, or whatever they used back then), thus destroying forever a bike which still looked exactly the way they did back then. Now, people often think twice. “Original and unrestored” is a status worth preserving and protecting in a bike, and such bikes have many admirers. I’ve touched before on how there are many parallels between antique bike enthusiasts and chopper enthusiasts. Both groups hanker after the look of bikes from a by-gone era, and are willing to sacrifice practicality to achieve this look. Now it seems chopper lovers will increasingly get faced with the same restoration dilemmas as the antique crowd. So next time you find something under a layer of chicken poop that turns out to be stretched, raked, molded, lace-sprayed, skull-festooned and Maltese-crossed, what will you do with it? Will you rip out the engine and drivetrain, put the rest of it on E-bay, then go out and buy all the best billet that money can buy? Or will you wash off the worst of the chicken poop, but otherwise leave it just as it is?

Chopper_Motorcycles_MY_OPINION

Upon returning from World War II, soldiers seemed dissatisfied with the motorcycles that were being built by Harley-Davidson and Indian. The bikes they had rode in Europe were lighter, sleeker, and were much more fun to ride. These vets started to hang out with other ex-soldiers to relive some of the camaraderie they had felt in the service. These groups of buddies realized that their motorcycles needed changes that Harley was not providing. These new "bikers" (another new term at the time) started their "chopping" by removing or shortening (bobbing) the fenders on their bikes. This made the bikes look cool and uncluttered. They originally called the new chopped bikes "Bobbers". The bikes kept evolving through the 60's and in the 70's and they started to call them "Choppers". In 1969 the movie "Easy Rider" was released which brought the Chopper into the public eye. That movie set into motion the wave of cool Choppers and Chopper builders that we see today. People wanted a Chopper and nobody was building them so they had to go build them themselves. Just what is a Chopper? The Chopper is created by removing or "chopping" off unnecessary parts from the bike. Who needs a windshield, front fenders, big headlights, clumsy blinkers, crash bars, big seats, etc? Chop them off and make the bike sleeker and lighter. Bikers started raking the front end so the tire was further from the bike, it gave the bike a cool look, which goes a long way with a biker. Handlebars were raised high and called ape hangers. The front tire was made thinner and the rear tire was made fatter. Some bikers even removed the battery and used a magneto to reduce weight. The gas tank, headlight, and blinkers were all made smaller. Anything deemed to be unnecessary was removed. This made for a bike style that was unique and tailored to each rider since each rider decided just what needed to be done to his bike to create the Chopper he desired. As individual backyard mechanics started to get noticed, more talented designers started building Choppers and their work became highly sought after. An individual now no longer needed to actually do the Chopper work, just express what he wanted to a Chopper designer and the designer would do the rest. Arlen Ness was one of the first and most recognized such designers. In the 1990's, the Chopper movement was revitalized. Although Harley Davidson is best known in the biker world, there are many other brands that people use to build Choppers. To many chopper riders, it's the end product that matters, not the name brand, but there will always be a segment of bikers that only want Harley. Choppers started because riders were dissatisfied with what Harley-Davidson was producing. Rather than abandon H-D, riders streamlined the H-D bikes by removing excess equipment and then modifying the engines, rake, and suspension. The result was a personalized bike much like the bike in Easy Rider. The steady evolution of the motorcycle continues. New factory bikes are more and more technically sophisticated with plenty of accessories, yet the Chopper continues to thrive as riders seek that minimalist simplicity that only the Chopper can supply. Are Choppers here to stay? You betcha! The Discovery Channel has helped by bringing the Chopper to the masses and the more people that see em, the more that want em!