Photos by Gino Mortillaro

Free your mind and think creatively. Click pics for bigger.

Ready to Roll

Photos by Gino Mortillaro

The Gypsy Run 4 is coming, and after talking to Walter, I can tell you that epic doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Start making your plans now: http://www.eastcoastgypsyrun.com/

Our pal Jay (aka Special ‘79) has posted a bunch of videos of chopping up & narrowing a sportsters gas tank. He covers everything from splitting the tank to hammerforming the bottom to putting it all back together. Super informative stuff, go chek it out on his youtube page: Special ‘79 videos

Make sure to check out his blog as well: http://specialseventynine.blogspot.com/

Mike P. sent in some pics of his 1977 XS650 based chop along with this info. Dig into it.

The bike is a 1977 XS 650. This was my first bike build. It was a blast to build and I learned a ton. I can say now Im officially hooked on building bikes. I am currently in the process of another XS build and I plan on building a triumph based chop as soon as I can afford one. Thats kind of why I started with the yamaha xs in the first place. Budget was a huge concern so I set out to do the whole bike for about 3k. I kept track of every dime spent on the build and it totalled up to about 4k all said and done(including the price of the bike). Im really happy with the results. This is what was done. I hardtailed the bike utilizing a G&L hardtail. The tank is a wassell. I made a new tunnel for it so it would sit higher up on the frame. Next I welded in flyrite site guage bungs and did all the bodywork. The rear fender is a 30s ford spare tire ring. I chopped it down and reradiused it to fit the wheel tighter. The seat is a accufast seat blank. I made all the mounts for that and drilled around the perimeter for a cool effect. The headlight is off of a scooter. It was a side mount. I shaved the side mounts and made a bottom mount for it and converted to 12 volt. It houses the speedometer in it. Last is the paint. I do that for a living, well paint and autobody so that was the easy part. I did the frame and a bunch of the smaller pieces in a bronze brass color. I used a black underneath and distressed it to mimic a patina’d brass effect. The tins were all done in chrome paint which I also distressed to give them more of a aluminum feel. All the stripes are done to match with brass powder in the stripe paint(Thanks Ed). The results of my build I call THE BRASS MONKEY. Thanks for checkin out my build.

From the 2009 Greasebag Jamboree.
Hey J - you finally paint this thing yet or are we going to be waiting another few years for that?