Knewman's Knuckle

How many gigs of storage do you have on your phone?

I’m not positive what you’re describing but I think that was my original plan, to terminate at the fender on a boss, I even made some cool little bungs, but it just doesn’t look right. They’re too long or something. Also making them attach from the top is a pain, and I REALLY don’t want to have to pull the wheel to pull the fender. That’s a major pet peeve of mine that most people do to choppers… just a thrubolt to the fender. There really isn’t enough room to get a tool in between the fender and tire on the inside anyway.

Was thinking about making a fancy coupling nut and stuff, but in the end it just adds even more to the rod extensions that i think look “too much” to begin with.

Attaching to the seat will actually stabilize the sissy more than attaching to the fender would, and also cut down on the length of the rods.

That’s my thinking, anyway.

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256… why?

That’s what I was trying to explain, run the tube to the fender and have it attach with a boss that mounted in a pad form/bolted flange. But not wanting to pull the wheel is a deal ender for that.

Yeah. Pulling the wheel is a motherfucker on this build. Something I knew right from the start.

Also the length of the rod just looks weird to me, hence, terminating early at the seat.

I saw the sissy bar and thought “Wow, that is a sissy bar I think really looks good.” Then I saw the extending bars. Not feeling the attempt to have the bars extend in any way.

The more I think about it the more I just want a little nub sticking out that bolts to the seat. Just an inch and a half long or so… It’ll look more like a bolting tab than an extension of the rod.

I just need it to be slick looking. It will have to fit into the socket on the taillight, so it’s gotta be round at the beginning, but sort of flare out and flatten out or something.

Thank you for the suggestions everyone, very appreciated. So I spent the past week doing some drawing and mocking up of various parts and bends and sweeps and decided to go with a very short arm, to give it the feel of a bolting tab, and not really a rod. The cool part is the seat supports the fender and is hidden, so there is no visible link between the fender and sissy bar, there isn’t a huge air gap there, about 3/16 inch, but it is still noticeable. I’m happy with the way it came out. The actual bolting method for joining the seat/sissy/fender was proposed to me by Rene at Mercury Moto, and it was really pretty elegant. There is a threaded T bolted to the fender, the seat drops over it and has bungs that the bolts pass through.

I didn’t take a ton of pictures, but I made some templates:

I brazed the seatpan together with Silicon Bronze, I am not a good brazer, but it is a fun material to work with.

Then I hand shaped these bolting brackets:

Then got everything all welded up. I’m happy with the look, wish I had taken a dead side shot because that’s the view I was most concerned about and I think it looks good.

The reason it is sort of “kinked” like that is because there is less padding going on the top than backrest. It will be fully radiused smoothly. Here’s a model of the seat after foaming:

Very nice! Love how the oil tank follows the line of the rear fender

dvGot the transmission all back together. Just need to make a fill plug (speedo hole is tapped now) some sort of bracket for the clutch linkage.

Nevermind all the finger prince.

I used a bareknuckle choppers OVERBEARING, which is a great idea. I did have to shave some of it off, though, because it was too long and hit my clutch. Also had to shave a bit off the clutch.

I know it’s been a while since I updated, but I really do work on this every day.

Finished welding the seat pan:

Made some front mounting bungs

Then made a mounting bracket. I originally planned to use the bolt holes on the seat stay but they are just BARELY inaccessible when the oil tank is installed:

No sweat though, this works just fine (painted black to stop rust):

Then I got a throttle addiction narrow sporty shell. Always liked them…

Then I had to make some parts for my tubing roller. Made these dies for 1” pipe. One steel and two delrin…

What a mess:

Started rolling some 1” sch10

About 10 seconds after the previous picture, this happened, so I had to remake the wheels in aluminum.

But I was able to make it work:

Then I made this piece:

And cut it in half:

Tacked from the inside:

Cut:

Cut more:

Sanded:

Welded solid:

Ground everything smooth and made a little wood template for cutting the tunnel relief… Surprisingly, wood has factored in strongly to this build.

Slapped my motor parts together for a few photos with the tank.

Looking pretty fresh:

And narrow!

I thought I had some pictures from when I made the bottom, but I guess not, I’ll take some later… I made some mounting tabs up. Only used a drill press a band saw and a sander to make these:

Then I made this fixture to hold the tabs in place:

My math worked out and everything was centered:

Welded them on. Used a bit too much heat on the bottom side.

The tank fits great. Next up will be a polished rod, petcock and bottom closeoff……

Love everything but the headlight. I’m sorry but it looks like an alien or something.

In this case you’re just wrong. :wink:

Here’s a pic @Jesseladowski took. Needed some good pictures before the first round of voting.

Some tank updates…

Made some stainless closeoffs for the bottom of the tank to cover the mounts.

I’ll leave the nitty gritty details to the imagination, but you can probably surmise what I did with these two pictures:

Added a petcock clearance hole. My original plan was to run a prism one, it’s an awesome piece, but I decided that A) I needed reserve, and B) I needed a bottom 90 degree mount. The reserve ain’t much but pushing choppers sucks. Also started sanding:

Still a few scratches and at this point, as well as some water spots:

Then I started making the ROD for groove in the tank. Hand bent this with a torch. It isn’t welded on and can be removed for paint, unlike the one on the oil tank (going to have to mask that one)

Also, I rounded the sharp back edge of the tank just a little bit:

Then once that was all polished up I installed the parts to check it out. Happy with the results. Everything fits pretty good.

Next I hacked up some 1936-37 rocker arms. Really, I just removed some fixturing areas and polished them up. More on this coming later:

Then I shined up my knuckle rocker boxes a bit. I’ll quote my instagram here: “After the rocker arm massacre early this week, I just can’t bring myself to polish these 77 year old rocker boxes mirror smooth. There is just so much history in these pits and scrapes and scratches, so they stay, I just polished over them. My cam cover is the same way. A perfect knucklehead is probably an S&S knucklehead.”:

VOTE FOR YA BOI!

3 places to vote:

Web poll here: https://www.poll-maker.com/poll1009690x35F8B500-42

Instagram (using your Instagram account) here: https://www.instagram.com/show_class_mag/

Also here: http://www.lowbrowcustoms.com/show-class-peoples-champ-voting-2017

Vote early and often :tup:

VOTING IS OPEN.

There are three places to vote.

  1. The best first place to vote is at http://www.lowbrowcustoms.com/show-class-peoples-champ-voting-2017 here you can see all the bikes and read a bit about them, then choose a name and vote for it! My name is Christian Newman, the picture they used of my bike is pretty old.

  2. On instagram check out @show_class_mag and comment “vote” under the picture of my bike (my username is @ctnewman and the pic they used is old)

  3. This online poll is hosted by the Show Class. https://www.poll-maker.com/poll1009690x35F8B500-42

Vote once in all three locations. It can be for me or for a competitor, I just appreciate any participation.
Thanks!

third link isn’t working

Works for me :gotme:

lets get Newman in front of this Eddie character.

Thanks guys, just don’t spam them with a million votes from the same device, I want it to be fair. I also want people to vote for what they like best, not just mine.

(not here nutswingin’) but any objective voter should be voting for you. Reading through the rest, and following this quietly for a while now… it’s night and day. IMO Lawshe is the only one even close but I just don’t like his style and lines.