Having just finished a Long yamaha chopper for a customer in Scotland I was waiting for him to come and take delivery when I had a phone call from another chap from scotland named Colin wanting an old school style chopper ( high bars, short forks etc.) out of his vs 750, i suggested he come down to the shop and have a look at what we do.
he made the long trek down to us with a very sorry looking vs750 on a trailer, as soon as he walked in he copped an eyefull of the long low black yam we had just finished and all his ideas for an old school style bike went out the window, he just had to have one of our stretched frames with 10" overs and a stretched tank. Superb! just what I like to hear!

so what happened next? I set to ripping the bike to bits. Two big boxes, one for bits to keep, one for bits to dump. we kept the wheels, motor, carbs and electrics and the original headstock was hacked off very roughly with neil standing behind me shaking his head, it's him who has to put it on the lathe and turn it down...
we designed a simple, single downtube rigid frame and some one off 10" over springer

forks, or rather I sketched it out on the back of a ratty piece of paper with a cartoon picture of Colin riding it and Neil laughed at me and did a proper drawing. We have a special working relationship me and Neil, I try and tell him what shape i want a fame by waving my hands about a lot and he puts into metal reality, very clever.
anyway, Neil built another superb clean rigid frame and a set of his springers ready for me to get some bodywork on. I took a new single cap mustang tank, cut the filler neck off, plated over it, welded a new filler in at the top centre of the tank and stretched the whole tank about 6 inches. I then cut a universal Highway Hawk contoured rear guard down the middle and took out 2 inches and welded it back up. Nik mounted the guard and made a mad curvy extremely sharp sissy bar and a radiator mount to match. I always feel rads let choppers down but in this case I think it makes the bike and gives it a real mechanical feel and I reckon Nik did a great job with the mounts. Nik also made the seat bases, the rear one following the curve of the rear guard.
I took some off the shelf 6" risers and made some wide V bars, I also modified some aftermarket forwards and mounted them up.

right, nearly ready for strip down! except for exhausts, two weeks to go till the bike is picked up.. better get a move on. I knew neil was coming in with Paul on the Saturday and I had a cunning plan.... i started to make one exhaust and made it really badly, Neil turned up looked at me like I was a complete idiot and said ' you can't put that on there! give it here!' superb, neil and paul proceeded to make a kick ass 2" stainless straight through system that

curved around the one side and exited low down on the right hand side of the bike, that was a very late night, lots of beer consumed but it got done. Ready for strip down!
Stoner Pete handled all the polishing, the chroming was done through Boneshakers and the paint was handled Punch at fortsport, i've got to be honest, I'm knocked out by Punch's paintwork, it is flawless and he turned it around in less than a week!
while all this was going on I cleaned and painted the motor, cleaned the carbs inside and out and up jetted them.
everything came back, plated, polished and painted. Me and Nik assembled the bike with stainless fasteners and we were ready to wire it. Nik wired it up with no problems and it was ready to go. It sounds awesome.
So there you have it a kick ass rigid chopper for less than the price of a new sportster, I like it, I like the mechanicalness of it, the cables, the fuel lines, the rad, the spikey sissy bar. A proper Benny bike! No billet, no 250 back tyre, no messing hardcore chopper. I'd keep this one if I could. So thanks to Nik, Neil, Paul and Punch for all their hardwork
Well, I hope you like it,  and if you want to check out more of our bikes or would like one built check out www.boneshakerchoppers.co.uk or pop in the shop and have a chat.

Benny