Project Boaz is a build for one of our local customers Don Odiorne. Don was looking for a simple soft tail custom, with smooth low flowing lines. Don explained that he did not want a radical custom, rather something that he could ride everyday yet still stop traffic, without breaking the bank! 

Working with Don we came up with the concept of project Boaz and that is what you see in the concept drawing.

Here are a few features that Boaz will have:

• 1.5" x .120 DOM tubing

• 35 degree neck and 3degree tree's

• The heart of Boaz is a 2006 80" HD Evo engine

• Don chose a closed primary chain drive.

• A six speed RSD transmission will provide final drive through an 1 1/2 belt to a 65 tooth billet rear pulley. 

• Tires and rims on the bike are a 2.15/21/120 Avon up front with an 8.5/18/250 Avon on the rear.
  
  

We advised Don to go with the 6spd transmission with a larger transmission pulley and a smaller final pulley. With this combination we will be able to pull some decent bottom end out of the bike and still have that 6th gear for the hi way.

Now on to the build.

The first thing we are going to be doing is machine the steering neck, Don chose our straight neck with internal races and bearings, this will give the frame a clean yet substantial look.

Here you see a couple pieces of cut raw stock	Next we place it in our CNC lathe and run the program
Here you can see the facing tool facing the part	Now the boring bar goes in and cuts the material to allow for the race to be press fit
Here you see one end completed with the different depths of cuts to allow for proper bearing and race fitment.	We simply repeat for the other side. Once the bearing openings are complete we make a simple clean up pass on the outside to ensure a smooth clean finish. And now our neck is ready to be put on the frame jig

Now we are going to go on to making our down tubes and bottom rails.

As usual we take our material to the saw and mark out our lengths that we have already determined on our computer. In this case it is 72", we want to leave them long as we will be making more bends later in the project

 

Now that we have our two pieces ready we take them to the bender, and enter the bend angle that we have determined using our computer software.

Now that we have bent both piece's and verified that they are identical we can setup up the jig table to start the build. We choose to use a simple jig table and clamp or weld brackets in place as we go. To us this makes sense as we don't believe that you can make a custom bike without using a custom jig for each one, this method allows us to do just that. It may take a little bit longer to setup each time but in the end we he have supports and brackets exactly where we need them, this reflected in the quality of our bikes.

	Here you can see that we are clamping down angle iron at our predetermined spacing for the down tubes and bottom rails.
Now you can see the angle of the down tubes against the neck and get an idea of what it is going to look like. In the picture we are using plastic clamps because they are easy to use for a quick look and mock up, but never use them for welding the frame as they will move all over the place and you will end up with a bike that does circles really well one way.

Next time we will be showing the assembly of the rear pulley and rotor along with the building of the swing arm.

We are now going to finish the bending of the frame tubes. Here we cut, clean and bend four lengths of tubing that will be used for our swing arm. 

	Now we bend the back bone from the dimensions taking from our computer, and you can get a visual of what it would like.