Monday, December 19, 2011

One step at a time

I always wonder what it would be like to build a bike with all the parts laid out in front of you. I myself have never been able to afford that luxury.  Travis's panhead was the closest I've ever been to that dream.  So like most of us, I usually just start with one part.  I have always dug Brandon's stuff at Mullins Chain Drive.  So that is where I started, with a set of his 39mm super narrow trees.  Simple and well made.
The next step was to fabricate bars.  I decided to use integral risers with 1" stainless tubing for the bars.  I proceeded to turn down a couple of 1" SS bolts to for the risers.

The trees are designed for 1/2" Allen cap screws.  I don't like the way they look on some parts of the bike.  So I decided to turn the hex heads down and tapped the heads for a 5/16" bolt.  This allows the 1/2 bolt to work with a 5/16" head in the counter bored hole on the trees. now I can use a traditional looking bolt without altering the trees.
More on the bars later.

1 comment:

  1. I am dying to know how you tapped the head (turned down) of a stainless bolt. I am trying to get this done for a marine application. An aquaintance tried and said a machine shop said it couldn't be done. What's the secret. I need a 3/8 tap UNF into a 5/8 bolt.
    Paul13jg@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete