A little more on my position re: bike & car building

To continue... Those great old guys (my Dad included) who taught us all the cool-assed tricks, had it right. It doesn't matter what name is on it, so long as you could take what was available to you and make it better than it was. All you have to do is look at the great hot rods of that era to see my point. Our Dads and Grandads would buy a cheap car and put a small amount of money and alot of time into it...the cars that were the cheapest for them were the literally miles and miles of old Ford Model A's lying around. Same goes for motorcycles...old Harley D's in the 7o's were kinda the same story...Triumph too.

Go to a car show today and some get it, some don't. They would rather shell out 20 Grand for an old rusty shell of a car than take what's down the street for a couple hundered bucks. I hear it all the time, why build a YAMAHA??!! Because it's cheap and available...I think my old Dad would be proud.

Welding done (mostly)

Ok, Swig's cousin couldn't do the welding after all, so I had my buddy Chris do it up for me. He's pretty good, so I don't mind. Now to test fit everything before getting stipped down again and painted.

For those of you who aren't really getting it, you have to understand my mindset for this or any build (old cars too). The original hotrodders were guys like me and you; work all week, love cars and bikes, have families, money is tight, etc...

Everything I put my hands into has the same sort of ethic as well, build it, have fun, get your buddies involved and save as much money as you can. Don't misunderstand this to mean CHEAP or LOW QUALITY.

Some more free time

I had some free time during lunch yesterday and decided I'd try my hand at fabbing a seat pan. I found an old steel sign in one of the piles of junk that I miked out to be 16ga. After coming up with a suitable template, I traced it out on the sign and cut it out with some electric sheet metal shears. I then hammered out the shape I wanted...it only took about an hour and here's what I got.

Now, I'll tack on a hinge up front, weld some bracing in on the underside, get some springs for the rear and have it covered...I'm thinking calf skin...any ideas?