Thinking about putting a girder style front end on my breakout. This will be a long-term project and I might update this thread as things progress. Not going with a traditional bar-frame look. Going with something more modern with either billet aluminum "forks" or using a plasma cutter to cut either half inch or 3/4" aluminum from a pre-designed pattern. Anyone here ever try building a fork system for their softail from the ground up?

 

Sounds intriguing.
Love machining. But I ain't one.
Hope this will develope as you like it to matte.

 

Hard part will be the logistics of making everything fit together. Already have a basic pattern of the "forks". Rather than going with a traditional welded frame, I'm gonna cut a pattern out of .5 or.75 inch aluminum.

 

All i can say after reading a thread last night about putting air in your tire and all the ridiculous things these guys go through just to put in air....you're a brave man lol...no seriously though that's an awesome project. I think your biggest hurdle will be getting the geometry right...I'd get that right before you nuts with the plas chopping up aluminum...trial and error engineering gets really expensive really fast. Wish I could help build it lol...good luck and keep us posted

 

Hardest part I think will be the mounting mechanism where the trees mount.

 

Have pics of what you're doin? Ext best thing since you're not down the block

 

Here's the rough draft of the plan. Side view. So far it is mostly to scale within coreldraw.

 

That should be interesting to see when you get done. Once in a great while I've seen a girder on a bike and it sure was different looking.

 

I guess you're gonna stick with the stock frame and thus maintain the rake and the steering head geometry? Or are you planning to chop the frame up and re-weld it to gain more rake?

If you stick with the frame as-is the basic geometry of the forks plus a possible increase of length may be taken from the stock forks.

If I remember correctly the OCC guys have done a couple of those girders. Maybe you can find a couple of episodes from their show where they build them....just to get some more info/details.

If you ask Google with "girder fork drawing" there will be loads of detailed info on how to design girders

Theres some good basic info on
http://chopperhandbook.com/forks.htm

 

I'll be watching for your updates. I could see, way down the line, modding this bike for more rake and a longer front end. Happy Choppin'!