Softail Bagger
Harley Motorcycle ProjectsDiscuss Softail Bagger in the Motorcycles forums; Great project HC. A real one off ride. I love alot about it, like the LED rear lights That seat is killer and of course the glass work. Keep it ...
Great project HC. A real one off ride. I love alot about it, like the LED rear lights That seat is killer and of course the glass work. Keep it up!
Eze, thanks been working on the bike for five six years now, the seat was a project from about three years ago. It started out as a cheap vinyl seat from e-bay, pulled off the cover and just used the pan and pad.
My wife is a horse lover and I am not much into skulls and demons so, out of lack of anything else, it was the iron horse theme.
We have a statue of the horse head, and I took a photo then traced it on the leather.
Cut out the top carved the horse, punched holes and stitched it up.
Hardest part was putting it on the pan. I got discouraged; worried about doing it so it sat on a shelf for at least a year, before I got the nerve to try it.
Don’t know what made me so scared to do it, I think I was afraid of it not looking good, or after working on it so long ruining it. I talked to a leather guy and he gave me the advice, that it started out as a piece of leather and that was all that it was then, just a piece of leather. Got me off my as…. And I finished it. All in all other than taking a lot of time it really did not take that much, (looking for the right word,) I guess, talent.
Carving is pretty simple, just trace it on the leather, follow the line with a knife.
I was going to dye it a oxblood but decided to leave it natural.
I made a seat frame that goes under the seat and hooks in the front of the bike frame and bolts to where the stock seat attaches so the seat comes off in about two minuets.
It is made out of inch flat steel and angle iron. I bought one that sells for two hundred bucks but it took too long to put on and off, and I like being able to put on my cruising seat and passenger pillion when I want to go on a trip.
I was thinking of making covers for the lids of the bags with leather to match the seat. They would have snaps and cover the lids, but the lids would still open. I was going to use the iron horse with the horses head, and the motor cycle as the body of the horse and have it reared up. But have decided to leave this set like they are.
I have the leather all cut out, ready to go so maybe in the future.
I have a friend who wants a set of bags and fenders, so maybe do this on his, but doubt he wants the iron horse theme;-)
Here is a look at the top.
I am doing good on the front fender body work. Got the body filler work almost done. Wanted to show a couple of tricks, You start off with a body file, or cheese grater on the filler. This tool is used while the filler is setting up, not wet but if you wait until it is hard, it is useless.
The file is used to knock off the high spots, don’t go too deep.
In the photos you will notice that I use at least two different colors of body filler. You do this by using different color hardener in the filler. They make it in red and blue. When the filler is different colors you know when you are sanding through the layer that you just put on.
And you can tell it is time to stop sanding and you can tell if have low spots.
This fender is going to be just a plug, to make a mold. Then the final fender will be cast from that mold.
Since the plug has been changed so much the body filler is pretty thick, but it does not matter because it will not see any road time.
And yes the photo is sidewise.
Here are two sanding plates that I made up out of fiberglass with wood handles. They were molded off an old fender and are the perfectly radius of the new fender. You make them by putting paper tape on the fender then glassing over it. Pop it off, trim it, glass on a handle, then you glue on the sand paper with spray contact adhesive. To start out for rough sanding is 36 or 40 grit.
These keep the fender from getting any flat spots, and are a real time saver, even considering the time that it takes to make them.
The longer they are the better, the one for the edge should have been six inches longer, but no more edges than I have to do, it is fine.
When the paper is shot you just pull it off, put on new.
Once in a while you need to soak the sanding plate in water to remove old paper, that gets built up.
Another real important thing to get the body work straight is to have a flat sanding plate. This is a piece of 1.5x2.5 hickory that has sandpaper glued to it.
It had been run through a planer and is perfectly straight.
Sand front to back, in an x circular motion. Do not cut a grove, keep changing sanding directions.
Here is the fender, almost done with the filler.
It needs one more coat of filler, then we move on to a polyester glassing. Glassing is a body filler but is much thinner, and sands much smoother/easer. Then you use a high build primer.
Between each stage is sanded, and then we start with the finer sand paper.
Starting today with 150, then 220, 320.
Then you start the wet sanding and regular urethane primer and then paint.
Should look great when finished. Thanks for sharing.
Buzz, thanks, I should have the front fender in primer tomorrow, maybe even get some black on it. I will post some photos when I do.
It sure is nice having such a great venue to keep a build log.
Just wanted to show what the fender looks like in primer. Now that I put it on the bike I think I want to make the skirt lower in front of the fork look more like the rear.
Have more of a whoop-tee-do.
The fender is just sitting there, it also might look better rotated back.
The green line is where I think I will trim the final fender once it is molded and re-cast.
What does everyone think?
Thanks for all the great pics and informative text, Harleycruiser. Very informative. Great work.
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Here is another quick look at the front fender. I was able to get some color on, an old junk blue that is a sacrificial sanding color. Also cleared it.
Here is what the final shape of the fender looks like, as you can see I lowered the front skirt. Like I said, after I am done with this fender, I will make a mold then cast the final fender. I will cut that fender to the shape I want.
I am still shaping the fender, I am using 220 wet.
Most of the final shaping is the area where the fender kicks up. This was made from scratch and lots of bondo, and there is no way you can use a template to gauge it. Just feel.
You can tell by the colors how much I have sanded through.
The milky white blue is sanded clear. The dark blue is base coat. The gray is filler/primer The pink and light blue are body fillers, the black it the fiberglass under everything and the light green at the fender tip is body glazing over everything. There was a dip here that did not show up until the clear was on.
Body glazing is real thin polyester body filler that is easy to sand. You use it for small dings, scratches.
You cant really tell how straight the fender is until you get it glossy, then thing will jump out at you,, both by site and by feel.
And at this point it is mostly feel, you close your eyes and run you hand over it until it is as familiar as, as, well you fill in the blank.
When you run your hand over a rough surface you don’t get a true feeling of it, you are distracted by the scratches.
When you sand flat surfaces at this point you want to use as large a sanding backer as possible. Here is what I use.
That and you sand at an angle so it covers the whole fender, and you want to go all the way around, not stopping and any one spot more than once or twice. Otherwise you get dips.
Side note; stock fender are not flat, even on the sides, they are curved.
Last edited by HarleyCruiser; 10-10-2008 at 05:18 PM.
Very nice work..... having done some glass work, I understand the amount of labor you are putting in here.....
Congrats on turning your vision to reality......
Very sexy machine..
Russ
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