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Part 1
= Nov , 2005 -
Planning the build - it's all about the
details
In the next few months you will witness
a bike being built for myself by the
guys at O School Choppers. It will
help you under-stand the whole process
of getting your bike built by O School
Choppers with all the details you want.
If you want to see a bike just recently
complete check out the
Hot Rod KONG Bike
here or
Brass Knuckles
here.
Let me
first tell you of how this project came
about. First of all I'm like any other
dreamer who likes Muscle Cars and
Choppers, I've often watched "American
Chopper" or "Jesse James" and wished
I had
not only the money but someone with good
chopper knowledge to help me build a bad
ass chopper. So after thinking about it
for 2 years I made my first mistake. I
bought a pro street chopper before
taking it for a test drive. Yeah I
figured as long as it look bad ass that
it would be right for me..... not!
Don't get me wrong, its a nice bike,
runs great, lots of chrome, great paint
job, a real looker, but its not
me. I guess you can say my heart wasn't
in the bike and I couldn't put my finger
on why until recently. Then like a
wrench to the side of
 the
head it hit me. The bike was someone
else's dream, not mine. The guy I
bought it from built it the way he
wanted to, not for me but for himself.
Well what I'm trying to get at here is
that you will take more pride in
building your own bike or having someone
like O School Choppers build it for you,
the way you want it. With your own
personal touch. That's what I like about
O School Choppers, they don't build
bikes and put them up for sale, they
build custom choppers for the customer
the way the customer wants it. Every
detail is worked out before the
build begins.
As fate would have it, I
got lucky, by chance I got a hold of a old
buddy R.K. (Chop) I did graphic work
with few years ago and wow, guess what?
He builds choppers, O School Choppers.
Right away I could see he was doing
something different, something exciting.
After many discussions as well as
regrets about buying the pro street
chopper, Chop and me finally came
to an agreement that is was time to
build the bike, and the bike build was
on.
The process might not be the same for everyone at
the beginning but I found it best to
find a bike with the basic setup you
want on the internet or in a magazine
and bring it in and discuss the details.
For me it was easy to convince
Chop and
Adam to build me my old
school chopper. It was exactly the bike
that is their trademark old school
signature chopper. A 34% rake frame,
whitewall tires, leather solo seat....
and of course bobber tank. As Chop would
put it "That's O School Baby".
The Frame is were it all begins. First
the tabs or brackets that are not needed
are hacked off and made smooth for the
painter. This bike was going to be
powder coated black which is traditional
for O School Choppers minimal bikes, but
I decided to paint the frame instead. O
School Choppers has their own painter
Dwight Purcellz of
Purcellz Customs
right on the property. Next step is to
meet with the painter and go over paint
and then meet with the pin-striper
(Zorac)
to go over pin-stripping.
Now you might think that I'm missing a
step here, what happened to mock up?
O School Choppers has built enough of
these bikes to know exactly what frame
prep is needed. Remember when I said
"Every detail is worked out before the
build begins" ? That's when this comes
into play. They know what kind of brakes
I'm going to use as well as fenders,
front-end, tank or seat.. So there's no
real need for a real mock up. on this
bike. Don't get me wrong, most bikes are
mocked up before paint, you will see
that if you visited the shop.
Ok, that's were we are at this week.
Next time I report we should have a
painted frame on our work table and
getting ready to do some assembly.
See you then...
Part 2 = Paint,
wheels, tires.. Roller!
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