The 100% Biker Project Bike.
Part The Fifth.

Back to workshop, and its now time to figure out where the footrests are going to go and how the controls will work. I've opted for forward controls mounted off the front upper engine stud, which will look neat and keep the front end uncluttered. It will also, just aout, keep the riders right boot clear of the radical pipes hanging off the front of the motor.

I've made plenty forward controls before, so this bit is quite straightforward. Starting with 1" mild steel bar I've turned off three sections for each side; the left hand section will form the footrest mount, the right hand section the footrest itself and the middle section is drilled to rotate around a section of 9/16" diameter bar. Assembled with grubscrews this makes a bolt on assembly with a pivot in the middle.

It's then a matter of making all the little bits to form each lever, then welding it all up to make the brake and gearshift. I've gone for curved rails for the levers to echo the lines of the frame.

	The levers are carefully spaced to make sure they clear the engine covers before final welding. The lower arms which will eventually connect to the linkages must be vertical with the levers in the operating positions.
	I don't yet have enough bits to make up the linkages, but wrapping tape around the levers allows me to try sitting on the bike before any final welding to make sure the angles are correct.

While all this has been going on I've kept casting an eye at the fuel tank. The Harley Sportster tank I'm using is beginning to look ridiculously small as the bike underneath it begins to grow, though I still like the side profile. Eventually I hit on the idea of adding a couple of air scoops to the sides of the tank which I can then use to ram air into a plenum box for the carbs. It will also add a new dimension to the lines of the bike. Making them, however, is a problem. I don't simply want to weld something up from metal sheeting as it will be far too crude, but moulding something from fibreglass requires skills I don't really have. Inevitably I end up on the phone to master sculptor and custom bike builder Kev Harlow. Kev is rushed off his feet making fibreglass figures for museums and tourist centres, but still offers to "knock something out" for me in exchange for some work on his Sportster. When he gets stuck in to the project it turns into another wonderful creation - so here's Kev's masterclass:

	Kev begins by adding clay to the sides of the tank, building up a roug shape fro the air scoops.
	The clay is then moulded and shaped using a mixture of formers and hand tools until the shapes are correct and both sides are the same. This is highly skilled stuff.
	Kev then makes a pair of fibreglass moulds by laying up resin and matting onto the two clay formers. When everything is fully cured the formers peel out of the molds, and Kev can make the final scoops by laying up into the two molds. Then the scoops peel out of the moulds like this.
	Kev has been doing this kind of work for a long time and has built up a solid reputation for his fibreglass figures which he now sells world-wide. He also built the famous "woman on a bike" fetish chop a few years back, trawl around the archives in our "featurebikes" section and you'll find it.
	The scoops are more or less ready to fit to the tank, but I need to add air intakes first. I've cut holes in the front of each one and added stainless steel tea strainers to make sexy looking air intakes. The masking tape will stay on until after the tank is painted.

Finally for this month I've been trawling the car accessory shops looking for lights for the bike. I don't want to use off-the-shelf custom lights as I want to get a more radical look, and this lamp caught my attention.

Originally intended as a car parcel shelf stop lamp it almost perfectly mirrors the lines of the rear mudguard and, mounted above it, looks like a high tech spoiler. A bit of jiggery pokery with a soldering iron and I have it wired for two circuits so I can wire it up as a stop/tail lamp for the plod. It just needs a tidy mounting now.

And that's it for now. Next time I'll be sorting the new aircraft filler cap and getting involed in radical ignition systems using VW Beetle disrtibutors and Relionat Scimitar coils. Wierd or what?

This month's Heroes list:
B&I Engineering (01484) 511534
Kev Harlow (0113) 275 3076

Dr.Rod.