Took a break from the Bornfree build to help out my friend Matty with putting together his whole bike that he has been collecting parts for a few years now.

His frame was hardtailed by Arie in san Mancos ( @Arie_vee) and motor built by Dan Carr ( @dcchoppers)

I took care of the rest making mounts for every part to be mounted to the frame best fit they can and made a custom sissy bar, exhaust muffler tips and shifter.

This bike will rip and with a few custom touches for me will be sure to have a different appeal next to a bike of the same stance.

Had the opportunity to put another bike together for one my my best friends Mark Kirkland. Mark does all my media work for myself and my shop, so im stoked to do some work for him.

Mark picked up this 78 and hardtailed it and collected all the parts then brought it in to me to get the bike completelty assembled and make some fresh stainless exhaust for it.

This exhaust is all stainless, including a squish pipe section all made in house. Mark already had some other good stainless from a previous bike including foot pegs and shifter and the sissy bar is one off my last versions of my shovelhead. Great style and lines on this bike and will be able to take a good beating.

Very excited to be asked to build a new bike for the Born Free motorcycle show this year. As always i will be keeping in line with my style of work making every piece by hand, fully body work and and custom paint all done in house and full polish/chrome. This build will also have a couple piece that are going to be designed on a CAD program and machined for a few one off pieces including triple trees, rear backing plate and coming up with some other pieces to add.

Details on the build:

When asked to build this bike i didnt have a motor to use. Simultaneously was talking with my good friend Paul about giving his panhead a refresh and making some new parts for him. Paul offered up his panhead for me to use for the show and in turn i will build him out a full show bike. It really helps me out and im so excited to build one of my best friends a bike.

This bike will be focusing a little more on sheet metal then past builds, Something im not very familiar with. The tank will be cut up and modified, Making a custom oil bag and modifying the rear fender to match. Playing around with ideas to give the appearance of a one piece body look where each part flows into the next. As mentioned ill also be making the clutch/ brake pedal from scratch, hand shifter, bars, sissybar, seat all mounts and anything else you can think of.

Because my style is building is really only noticeable from being up close to see the detail im thinking i will be doing a little more catchy paint to draw you in close to take a look.

Really looking forward to getting started!

Finished paint minus pin striping basking in the sunset outside my shop. a lot of firsts with this paint job with the panel technique and learning how to surface guild 23K gold. Next up in learning how to pinstripe to outline the gold.

Base coat and panel designs laid out on the tins and the frame. Based, gilded with gold leaf and clear coated.

My 69 fully body worked ready for primer. Ready to mix up a custom color.

Swapped over most of the parts that are being reused on my shovel rebuild.

Happy with the new look. Mounts for the rear half up next

Today begins the rebuild on my 69 shovelhead to fully complete the build with paint, chrome and some new parts.

First big step was completing this new frame. Oem 69 swingarm frame that i cut up and fabricated a hardtail for using ‘Hardtail choppers’ axle plates from John.

Windowed the neck leaving the undrilled neck lock in place and added some details for molding around the axle plates and legs.

The front peaks i formed from two pieces of sheet metal each and trimmed to fit the space and flow with the frame.

New sissybar for my 69, fully tig welded stainless steel construction.

Photos from the weekend down in Baja shot by my dood Mark.

Finished the fabrication on my new rear brake system for my 69. The goal here was to create a mechanical looking pedal/linkage system with a hidden master cylinder to actuate the hydraulic drum brake.

the pedal is attached to a shaft that using the stock crossover shaft on the panhead frame and linkage to the cam.

Master cylinder is hidden sitting sideways behind my transmission and actuated by a turning cam to push the plunger.

Instead of running a hydraulic brake switch, i kept the mechanical linkage switch and mounted it underneath the transmission out of sight to avoid having extra brake line fittings/switches.

All parts manually machined out of stainless steel.

New pipes i fabricated for my 69 in the raw. Finished for chrome. I made 1/4'“ ribs and tig welded them with silicon bronze the help the transition from straight pipe into the megaphone to help them flow better and also one the the ends for some extra flare.

In the mad rush to finish the bike before the show i did not take any photos during final assembly. Lucky i have some very talented friends in different mediums of photography who took some great photos. The last two photos feature invited builder Jake Hindes- Prism Motorcycles insane panhead build and Jake himself.

Photos by Michael Van Parys shot on 120 medium format film.

Finished paint for my Peoples Champ 5 build. The color is a custom color that i mixed from an old Triumph color originally tweaking it to have more of a peachy pink color palette.

my best friend Skyler has been collecting parts for a little while and finally got enough together to start putting it together. Spent the past couple weeks after work getting all the fab work taken care of. A few more things to make then ready to be broken down for paint and chrome.

I wanted the exhaust to flow with the lines of the frame and keep the frame rails uninterrupted in view so that nothing is hidden. routed the front exhaust pipe in between the floorboard stanchion and brake arm to keep it as tight as possible so that its not wasted space with the single downtube. 

I have been dreading adding the fifth trans mount which normally mounts from the frame to the transmission and ruin the nice look of the transmission almost floating in the frame rails. So i came up with this way of adding the fifth mount to the transmission mounting plate so it has the mount it needs but keeps the flow of the frame.

Took a stock kicker arm and welding 1/4" rod around and blended out the welds. Forgot to take a picture before the blending. Loving the way this looks.

Very happy with how all the parts are coming together on this build so far. The list of parts to make is getting shorter.