Custom Projects
Isaac Gouge's "G79" 2016 Heist Rework
My name is Isaac Gouge; I build stuff. If you're like me at all winter can be a tough time for lack of riding weather, but also a great time for putting ideas down on paper for when that first sign of warmth hits the forecast. This build idea came from watching documentaries last winter (2015) about WW1 and more specifically a series of YouTubes by a guy in Britain that curates a museum full of operational tanks from just about every era. I have always liked the first British tanks, the Mk1 thru V series especially. If you remember the tank scene from Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, you'll know the type and style I am talking about.
This build is was my most ambitious to date. The frame, suspension, lighting, handlebars, fuel tank, containers, wiring, and aesthetic pieces are all hand made from raw, scrap and salvage materials. The only truly 'Heist' parts that are retained are the wheels and engine/electrics. The donor Heist was in bad-bad shape and almost free if I'd haul it off for the guy that wanted rid of it.
The frame is based on my favorite era of Indian Scouts from the 1920s. I'm not a brand loyalist, just like the Indian attention to fame design. The curved backbone, tank and swept-back triangular frame is just about perfect to me. It's got a single downtube and the motor is a stressed member of the frame. Very simple, very clean, but obviously designed to look good.
This bike is actually a collection of new project ideas that I wanted to try for future builds on larger bikes. I can't recommend this shotgun approach because it relies on alot of variables to all come together in the end to even be rideable, but I weighed the idea building separate bikes for frame, suspension, tank, stance, era etc and decided to just go for it in one build. Fortunately it all did congeal nicely and the aesthetic pulled it all together.
The leaf spring suspension was a great project all it's own. It's a simple idea, adustable and very tough- also very heavy. I iniitally had a hard time sourcing spring leaves. The smallest trailer leaves were too large and stiff. I looked into snowmobile leaves, but I couldn't get a first hand look at them since I live in a warmer climate, and they were alittle too pricey to just order and see. I found out that flat prybars are made of sping steel from one of the guys I work with that makes knives out of them. I guess that is a common thing, who knew? They were perfect and affordable -so yeah, my ride is sprung on three 15" flat prybars cut down and bundled. I went with a trailing link design with a rake angle pushed out alittle more than is probably recommended for low speed. Looks good, one of my favorite aspects of the bike. Handles very well with wide handlebars and tracks very well at speeds above 15mph.
The frame and tank are scrap sheet and 1/8" wall tubing. I use a basic pipe bender and tubing roller. After you create a jig and establish the wheelbase you want the frame goes together fast. Maybe a day and a half. My jigs use the rims of the actual bike held in place where they will be for the build. I true them up to eachother and plumb and build the frame between them. As long as your front suspension is square, it all comes together nicely. I use a simple 220V stick welder with those nasty but effective 6011 rods. I trust the penetration and strength of my welds and rely on aesthetics to smooth over the violent look of that kind of weld bead.
I chose to go very low with the frame. I wanted the top of the backbone to be at the same height as the top of the front tire and curve down gently to the rear axle. It worked out beautifully - but - I also found that despite a relatively standard modern wheelbase, the bike overall looks smaller than I would have liked for my height and weight. A good lesson that wasn't readily apparent on paper. It does create a great handling bike though, super low center of gravity, I think I set the engine at a mere 3.5 inches off the ground, that also being the lowest part of the bike.
The 'armor plating' is a mixture of aluminum, steel and a ton of bolts. Each wheel disc was made slightly different as I made them and learned a bit with each fabrication. Ultimately I went with an all steel construction with a heavy gauge outer rim for stiffness. Weight and speed just weren't a consideration for this ride. Heavier steel also meant I could weld them together instead of actually bolting which saved alot of time and minutae. I use bead roller to run ridges around the discs for stiffness and looks. That is a great tool for anyone looking to do sheet fab.
The tank is just 16ga sheet steel. I buy dented/damaged sheets from my local steel distributor for a good price. Dents work for my designs, and I don't mind hammering out creases etc. After the frame was tacked together I was able to make some cardboard templates for the shape to fit into the design. Very simple stuff. Just two side plates and the a progressive bending of a single peice of sheet over the top with tack welds. After the tank has all it's sides tacked I go back in and tack in between the existing tacks. I do this several times, this keeps the overall heat down and minimizes warping of the sheet. It takes awhile, the trick is to have another part of the bike to work on while the tacks cool. After the tacks get close enought to form a bead I stop welding and grind down the bead flat. After that I apply fiberglass resin - the repair type that has fibers present in the resin, a Bondo product. It's amazing stuff, very tough to work with, but will seal up a tank perfectly as long as you only have small leaks to deal with and it's not used inside the tank where it is submerged all the time. Another great trick for sealing pinhole leaks you may find later is to gather up your metal cutting dust and gently pack into the hole, then hit it with a drop of the liquid super glue. It binds the metal fibers and makes a great strong seal.
Aesthetics are the best part of my projects. I really enjoy making stuff look used, abused, old and authentic. I like a good clean bike as much as the next guy, but there is just something about the character of a bike that has a visible history of actual use that attracts me more. I use alot of techniques to acheive the looks I like. If the piece is metal and not crucial to safety, I strip it and let rust do it's thing. I live in a humid area and it doesn't take long. For an accelerated process I will use a mixture of bleach and vinegar. It's very agressive stuff and needs to be neutralized with baking soda after it does it's job. Messy but fast. After it gets a nice surface patina I seal it with a mixture of WD40 and lanolin. After a few days in the sun the WD40 evaporates and leaves a thin, dry film of lanolin, which is just a thick organic waxy grease which perfectly preserves the patina and prevents further oxidation. For plastic/aluminum or parts of the bike I'd rather not have true rust, like frame and suspension, I use a successive layer of spray paints with textures added either from using textured sprays or dusting the wet paints with metal cutting dust from the shop floor. Other rust/weathering effects are applied over that with sponges dipped in various colors of paint. It's a complete project in itself that can take a few weeks. Lettering and graphics are applied at the same time as the initial base color and are weathered along with the rest of the bike to maintan uniform sense of use/abuse.
I wanted to create a general use trailer for myself, and decided to go ahead and integrate that into this build. A single wheel trailer is not a new idea, but I didn't like what I saw that was already available. I wanted to use a full size rim and tire and it needed to be a flatbed with options for whatever I wanted to haul on it. The trick here is create a heavy-duty universal joint. I originally tried a large u-joint from a farm supply store, but it didn't have the range of motion I needed for tight maneuvres, like in a parking lots or turns tighter than 60 degress. I just fab'd my own from some 3/8 bar and some 5/8 bolts/nuts. Very simple and very stout with a total arc of over 240 degrees, more than enough. It has a very low center of gravity and from my testing only imparts a slight feedback to the bike when riding. By that I mean there is just a ghost of a repeat of the motions you make on the bike that get sent back to you from the trailer. For instance if I am traveling straight and I make a slight correction to the left to avoid a pothole, the trailer will follow nicely but also send that same push to the left a split second later, just about 10% of the intial force. It's just different, just like it feels different when you haul a trailer with a car. I'm pretty sure I can minimize it further by stiffening the longitudinal axis of the trailer. I thnk is mostly the result of the trialer twisting a bit between the u-joint and the it's own rear axle. The feedback is the untwisting motion. Works well, I'll be adding a hitch to my other larger bikes down the road. I took a chance and went with an unsprung axle and the use of a lower pressure dual sport tire. Seems to do the trick, if there is a resonant speed bounce with this set up, it must be above 65mph, which is the max for this bike. Any bounce encountered from road conditions they are immediately smoothed out by a sharp twist of the accelerator. The trailer behaves immediately.
Overall a great project. I get a massive amount of curiosity, thumbs-up, cat-calls, and any time I stop for gas or chow I end up talking with fellow bikers for as long as I'm willing. It's a great feeling to build your own bike, unique to you, and then actually get out and ride it. And it a can all be done on a poor man's budget. Just take your time, save up for the right tools and go for it.
This build is was my most ambitious to date. The frame, suspension, lighting, handlebars, fuel tank, containers, wiring, and aesthetic pieces are all hand made from raw, scrap and salvage materials. The only truly 'Heist' parts that are retained are the wheels and engine/electrics. The donor Heist was in bad-bad shape and almost free if I'd haul it off for the guy that wanted rid of it.
The frame is based on my favorite era of Indian Scouts from the 1920s. I'm not a brand loyalist, just like the Indian attention to fame design. The curved backbone, tank and swept-back triangular frame is just about perfect to me. It's got a single downtube and the motor is a stressed member of the frame. Very simple, very clean, but obviously designed to look good.
This bike is actually a collection of new project ideas that I wanted to try for future builds on larger bikes. I can't recommend this shotgun approach because it relies on alot of variables to all come together in the end to even be rideable, but I weighed the idea building separate bikes for frame, suspension, tank, stance, era etc and decided to just go for it in one build. Fortunately it all did congeal nicely and the aesthetic pulled it all together.
The leaf spring suspension was a great project all it's own. It's a simple idea, adustable and very tough- also very heavy. I iniitally had a hard time sourcing spring leaves. The smallest trailer leaves were too large and stiff. I looked into snowmobile leaves, but I couldn't get a first hand look at them since I live in a warmer climate, and they were alittle too pricey to just order and see. I found out that flat prybars are made of sping steel from one of the guys I work with that makes knives out of them. I guess that is a common thing, who knew? They were perfect and affordable -so yeah, my ride is sprung on three 15" flat prybars cut down and bundled. I went with a trailing link design with a rake angle pushed out alittle more than is probably recommended for low speed. Looks good, one of my favorite aspects of the bike. Handles very well with wide handlebars and tracks very well at speeds above 15mph.
The frame and tank are scrap sheet and 1/8" wall tubing. I use a basic pipe bender and tubing roller. After you create a jig and establish the wheelbase you want the frame goes together fast. Maybe a day and a half. My jigs use the rims of the actual bike held in place where they will be for the build. I true them up to eachother and plumb and build the frame between them. As long as your front suspension is square, it all comes together nicely. I use a simple 220V stick welder with those nasty but effective 6011 rods. I trust the penetration and strength of my welds and rely on aesthetics to smooth over the violent look of that kind of weld bead.
I chose to go very low with the frame. I wanted the top of the backbone to be at the same height as the top of the front tire and curve down gently to the rear axle. It worked out beautifully - but - I also found that despite a relatively standard modern wheelbase, the bike overall looks smaller than I would have liked for my height and weight. A good lesson that wasn't readily apparent on paper. It does create a great handling bike though, super low center of gravity, I think I set the engine at a mere 3.5 inches off the ground, that also being the lowest part of the bike.
The 'armor plating' is a mixture of aluminum, steel and a ton of bolts. Each wheel disc was made slightly different as I made them and learned a bit with each fabrication. Ultimately I went with an all steel construction with a heavy gauge outer rim for stiffness. Weight and speed just weren't a consideration for this ride. Heavier steel also meant I could weld them together instead of actually bolting which saved alot of time and minutae. I use bead roller to run ridges around the discs for stiffness and looks. That is a great tool for anyone looking to do sheet fab.
The tank is just 16ga sheet steel. I buy dented/damaged sheets from my local steel distributor for a good price. Dents work for my designs, and I don't mind hammering out creases etc. After the frame was tacked together I was able to make some cardboard templates for the shape to fit into the design. Very simple stuff. Just two side plates and the a progressive bending of a single peice of sheet over the top with tack welds. After the tank has all it's sides tacked I go back in and tack in between the existing tacks. I do this several times, this keeps the overall heat down and minimizes warping of the sheet. It takes awhile, the trick is to have another part of the bike to work on while the tacks cool. After the tacks get close enought to form a bead I stop welding and grind down the bead flat. After that I apply fiberglass resin - the repair type that has fibers present in the resin, a Bondo product. It's amazing stuff, very tough to work with, but will seal up a tank perfectly as long as you only have small leaks to deal with and it's not used inside the tank where it is submerged all the time. Another great trick for sealing pinhole leaks you may find later is to gather up your metal cutting dust and gently pack into the hole, then hit it with a drop of the liquid super glue. It binds the metal fibers and makes a great strong seal.
Aesthetics are the best part of my projects. I really enjoy making stuff look used, abused, old and authentic. I like a good clean bike as much as the next guy, but there is just something about the character of a bike that has a visible history of actual use that attracts me more. I use alot of techniques to acheive the looks I like. If the piece is metal and not crucial to safety, I strip it and let rust do it's thing. I live in a humid area and it doesn't take long. For an accelerated process I will use a mixture of bleach and vinegar. It's very agressive stuff and needs to be neutralized with baking soda after it does it's job. Messy but fast. After it gets a nice surface patina I seal it with a mixture of WD40 and lanolin. After a few days in the sun the WD40 evaporates and leaves a thin, dry film of lanolin, which is just a thick organic waxy grease which perfectly preserves the patina and prevents further oxidation. For plastic/aluminum or parts of the bike I'd rather not have true rust, like frame and suspension, I use a successive layer of spray paints with textures added either from using textured sprays or dusting the wet paints with metal cutting dust from the shop floor. Other rust/weathering effects are applied over that with sponges dipped in various colors of paint. It's a complete project in itself that can take a few weeks. Lettering and graphics are applied at the same time as the initial base color and are weathered along with the rest of the bike to maintan uniform sense of use/abuse.
I wanted to create a general use trailer for myself, and decided to go ahead and integrate that into this build. A single wheel trailer is not a new idea, but I didn't like what I saw that was already available. I wanted to use a full size rim and tire and it needed to be a flatbed with options for whatever I wanted to haul on it. The trick here is create a heavy-duty universal joint. I originally tried a large u-joint from a farm supply store, but it didn't have the range of motion I needed for tight maneuvres, like in a parking lots or turns tighter than 60 degress. I just fab'd my own from some 3/8 bar and some 5/8 bolts/nuts. Very simple and very stout with a total arc of over 240 degrees, more than enough. It has a very low center of gravity and from my testing only imparts a slight feedback to the bike when riding. By that I mean there is just a ghost of a repeat of the motions you make on the bike that get sent back to you from the trailer. For instance if I am traveling straight and I make a slight correction to the left to avoid a pothole, the trailer will follow nicely but also send that same push to the left a split second later, just about 10% of the intial force. It's just different, just like it feels different when you haul a trailer with a car. I'm pretty sure I can minimize it further by stiffening the longitudinal axis of the trailer. I thnk is mostly the result of the trialer twisting a bit between the u-joint and the it's own rear axle. The feedback is the untwisting motion. Works well, I'll be adding a hitch to my other larger bikes down the road. I took a chance and went with an unsprung axle and the use of a lower pressure dual sport tire. Seems to do the trick, if there is a resonant speed bounce with this set up, it must be above 65mph, which is the max for this bike. Any bounce encountered from road conditions they are immediately smoothed out by a sharp twist of the accelerator. The trailer behaves immediately.
Overall a great project. I get a massive amount of curiosity, thumbs-up, cat-calls, and any time I stop for gas or chow I end up talking with fellow bikers for as long as I'm willing. It's a great feeling to build your own bike, unique to you, and then actually get out and ride it. And it a can all be done on a poor man's budget. Just take your time, save up for the right tools and go for it.