Chopper 300

Using rectangular styrene rod I started forming the new swing arm. I cut the rod in at 45 degrees and tried to follow the shape I drew earlier.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/1F9D06BD-B9CA-446B-B4B9-4AB19D2D32C0.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/1D99C93B-CB5F-4209-A1B5-C1A45BE7FB96.jpg

I've reworked the rocker as well and will test fit them together later on. This shape was pretty easy to acomplish. I'll file the angle ends down and support the structure with putty and some sprue.

I feel great! This much modeling in one day has not been done since 2009!

I got fed up with the frame. Wrote earlier that I want something more aggressive, not the Dennis Hopper Chopper that the kit looks like. There is a lot of space over the front cylinder but the rear cylinder head almost touches the frame.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/F7269892-641C-4F21-A350-62701CE91314.jpg

To lower the fork mount some of the frame had to be removed. I cut the two front vertical frame posts and removed 10 mm or so. I removed the engine mount from the top frame tube and made a cut in front of the center post. That made it possible to push the tube downwards and attach it to the fork mount. At all three points that had been cut I drilled holes and put some 1mm brass rod inside for stability.

Frame looks a bit skewed in the pics but will be fixed up with some putty. I'll have to reworke the tank a bit on the underside to make it fit on the frame.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/3EB451C6-7CB6-4840-80B0-CA09AF0F219A.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/8F423C0E-3D4A-4534-AB4F-AF892D96EFF5.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/DC211BA2-27FD-4302-99B9-58267E2BA909.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/ECE890A1-BF28-4F3F-B8B8-7506B9C1297B.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/23E162E0-BE23-4211-ABF5-E7F53BAEFAA3.jpg

Bike stance is now better, don't you think?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/F01857FA-4CE7-42A1-942D-1A106DA0CF5F.jpg

I was able to start the rear fender work too! Pics will come!

I feel great! This much modeling in one day has not been done since 2009!

Bike stance is now better, don't you think?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/F01857FA-4CE7-42A1-942D-1A106DA0CF5F.jpg



Looking much better !! Looks more agressive. Good job.
Waiting for the swing arm.

Thanks D! Swingarm is moving on, just have to work out the pivot point in the frame.

Nice new swing arm, looking forward to see it fixed to the frame

So, what's this going to be?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/D51B0A97-85D6-4023-ADB0-8A17F8012515.jpg

No one went for the double jeopardy :-)
Dry fitted the first mock-up of the perimeter rear brake disk but find it a bit wide. I'll be back with a new narrower version.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/06C3E816-95E4-4BC0-803F-A1F55D9038AF.jpg

Nice new swing arm, looking forward to see it fixed to the frame

Thanks! Fits nicely around the tyre but perhaps a bit thin to carry the load...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/DDF571C6-7047-4063-AF8B-762EF9DA37CA.jpg

Noice! Are you going hubless?

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4323/4194/1600/b1208400.jpg

:iceslolan

Noice! Are you going hubless?

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4323/4194/1600/b1208400.jpg

:iceslolan

Actually thought of it at some point but left it for a future project :-)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/46A43EF7-3F10-42AC-84CB-CD90064FCC5A.jpg

Looks like a lot of drilling by hand. :icon16:

Any idea how to hold the brake calliper?

Keep up the good work :evillol:

Looks like a lot of drilling by hand. :icon16:

Any idea how to hold the brake calliper?

Keep up the good work :evillol:

A good bit of measuring and then 72 holes... Some of them not totally lined up but I don't think it shows. I will probably use a modified brembo caliper with a mounting tab on the axel.

The holes look good, once painted I don't think the odd 1 or 2 slightly out of alignment will show. I can imagine how hard it is to get them all lined up nicely!

Boring times at work made me buy 60$ worth of detailing parts on Ebay. Hate myself but it will look good on the bike!

Boring times at work made me buy 60$ worth of detailing parts on Ebay. Hate myself but it will look good on the bike!

What did you buy ????

What did you buy ????

Speed meter, some rivets, shrink tube, a set of Scale Motorsport bolt heads, stripe decal and some epoxy putty for this build and some minor stuff for the future :-) A far away future probably :-)

I'm moving like the train here, try to keep up ;-)

Decided to complete the rear wheel so that I can make the frame mount with the wheel fitted to the swing.

As I took the hub and spokes from a gp rim I had to cut back the excess material. Mounted the rim onto a drill bit and held it against an abrasive paper

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/5C499102-90E3-4F39-8F1E-E55A0BCF7ECB.jpg

Looks quite good with the new spokes!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/18F82EB7-EB84-4721-BE27-BF9B9C8FA153.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/28D3913D-A8AE-4DF1-AE6A-0A3BA97FFCE6.jpg

One side of the rim hub aligned perfectly against the swing but I cut back the other side. I will fill the have to insert some tube into the hub to narrow it down a bit. Will try and get hold of an axel set from T2M or Top Studio. Even though the tyre is 25 mm wide it will work as the swing is single sided.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/D370A769-E1E1-45E2-BB61-89B636A784CE.jpg

Swing arm needs to be strengthened and I started putting pieces of styrene top and bottom. Back side is I lost the natural weld lines from where the pieces of rectangular rod were glued but I think the construction should have been too weak.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/6FE3A9AA-0F70-4CBF-B6B5-71EC9E01AD5C.jpg

As the secondary drive has to move ouside of the frame. I have to rework the engine block and widen the part where the primary drive is situated. Thought of doing it in epoxy putty but then decided it's best that I align some rod first to get it all lined up properly. I can the fill the voids with putty and shape the part.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/8376DA1E-6EC3-461F-87D9-50DA2ABD1310.jpg

Nice progress.

Can't shake the idea/tip about a chin spoiler off.
Tried a few ideas on the drawing board but havn't found the right feeling.
Mostly it's because the frame configuration with two tubes that joins at the crown.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/EF66045D-A976-45FB-ABC5-E614FF827590.jpg

Somehow I will have to rework this section. I think I'll cut the frame sections and join them at a lower point, adding a single tube from the joint to the crown.
More like something like this

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/20055_hardbody_rigid_chopper_frame.jpg

That way I can use the smaller triangular frame area to mount a chin spoiler.

Slowly I've started realizing that an hour of modelling per week is better than none. This particular build will probably last forever but it's relly funny doing something unique.

Have had many thoughts on how to mount the rear fender. With a loose mount I had trouble dry fitting it together with the swing and frame. Finally I decided to integrate it with the swing. That way I can have better control of any warping or bad fit. Just like the tank I widened the fender by cutting the kit part in halves and glueing stripes of styrene on the inside and then filling the gap with milliput. I had to cut a hole from the side of the fender to slide the swing in place and then fit it with more milliput.

This is where I stand some sanding later:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/D9F508C9-A9B0-4635-AC82-B70F475CF57F.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/D84B1F21-B789-4FF5-A645-DEE47A521DE9.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/8B5C55D5-0B00-45F9-B1B6-CC6636525173.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/79741F91-DE76-459A-AE1A-BF76768EA31C.jpg

Fender will probably be shortened a bit at the ground end but that will have to wait until I got a stance dry fit with together with the modified frame and forks.

Slowly but surely! An hour is certainly better than none. Looking good - keep at it!

Frame has been modified as per the ideas in post #140. Cut the foremost parts and made an insertion at a lower point so that the legs could be bent inwards. Put a single piece of styrene tubing from the head and and attached the legs with a small piece of brass rod for stability. Then I just added milliput to the cuts and sanded smooth when dried. Still a few yards to go..

Upper frame part is slightly bent to meet the lower stance.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/D5797BDE-AB5A-4948-AB7B-9492D142A6B6.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/E4E7C3EA-6D49-4AF5-B45C-54F82F434BCB.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/F061A88E-D68B-4A63-A3AD-EA3B61AA55CC.jpg

Just realized that this build in a couple of months has been on for seven years and I'm still working on frame parts and haven't painted ONE piece :-)

Still getting great ideas though and still have to land the structure for the fork build-up. BUT THEN I'll get somewhere :-)

The reworking of the frame is starting to give unwanted side effects. The new rake for the forks make the room for the tri-clamp a bit tight. I'm looking for a new set to replace the kit ones anyhow but I think I'll have to go gp-style if I don't want to rework the tank.

It's quite hard to determine the fork setup when I'm not completely done with the rear. I'll have to come up with some mock up solution to be able to work with the frame/swing/rear tire mounted together. Otherwise there will always be some millimeters here and there making trouble.

Day off from work and started working on the front end. I know where I want to go but haven't put much thought into how to get there.

I have the small sized gp rim I got from Ketje but I want street discs. I dug deep into my spare parts box and found some from the Ducati 916 and som from the Yamaha R1. As you can see the Ducati discs are a bit out of size for the rims (and a bit heavy as well)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/5EC81854-5EA0-4D1B-A9CA-946C00659424.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/D581361D-FFA9-4220-A65D-BAFBC018E0AF.jpg

Problem with the R1 discs are that the center hub is integrated in the rim. When using them on the M1 rims they will have nothing to be fitted on. Out came the saw and some surgery later I have to center hubs for the discs, they will also fit the job as distances between the rim and fork legs.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/875E8E02-84D4-4105-926B-CEBFD6430900.jpg

Next is the fork legs, triclamp and mud guard. Never scratched a fork before so that could be interesting.

I stumbled upon this upon visiting the board for the first time in months. I have several of these kits (I have no idea why I keep "acquiring them") that I want to build but their toy like qualities also stop me. Your detailed steps are getting me much closer to actually moving forward with this project. I hope you'll continue with your build so hopefully I'll restart mine.

Yours may be the best build of this kit that I have seen.

I stumbled upon this upon visiting the board for the first time in months. I have several of these kits (I have no idea why I keep "acquiring them") that I want to build but their toy like qualities also stop me. Your detailed steps are getting me much closer to actually moving forward with this project. I hope you'll continue with your build so hopefully I'll restart mine.

Yours may be the best build of this kit that I have seen.

Thanks! I hope that I can finish all of the ideas started...

I agree, the oob kit is VERY toyish and simplyfied, but on the good side the engine block is quite nice. I guess ther will not be that many parts on the kit that is left untouched when done but that's the fun part. The chopper segment leave you with eons of possibilities to tweak and tune (just take a look at some American chopper shows...)

The process has been quite slow but I hope that I'm starting to move towards some painting

Forks will be some hours of work. A lot of cutting, glueing and cleaning up. Good thing is that I know what I want to achieve, easier to work that way.

The fork legs are almost 70 mm wide in 1:1, using aluminum tube to get the right diameter. Fork bottoms have to be widened to fit the legs. I cut some mm of styrene tube and fitted it on top of the piece. I'll use some putty to smoothen the edge when I've remounted the caliper mounts that I cut off earlier.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/B0917F15-5C15-400E-9B82-3CA046B38AD4.jpg

The brass rod is drilled into the bottoms for stability.

The cut caliper mounts have a wrong angle for the new fork rake. I started sanding the angle steeper and glued some styrene rectangles to get the correct distance from the forks to accept the wider brake discs.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/11F78351-24FC-4B50-AAF2-C603E7A963D4.jpg

The modelling community is so great, asked on Scale Plasticcars for some calipers, got three! I'm going withe the center Brembo ones, they are sort of beefy, have better mounting slots and the larger Brembo logo.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/55447CC1-2D10-436F-A42F-7C4F0D486E43.jpg

Sorry for the poor quality...

Christmas holiday, carrols on the stereo and glue in the air!

Trying to get the swing arm test fitted with the frame. Had to rework the cradle lile pivot as it was warped. My idea is to paint the swing separately and then install it in the pivot cradle that has been glued to the upper part of the frame (below the seat) for stability. Dunno if it is going to work.
From tonights dry fitting I found out that the swing part has to be lengthened at the foremost part, where the brass tube will go through. Otherwise the fender will be to close to the frame/seat.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/AA04B75A-A4D2-4600-B99F-5727ECEE0618.jpg

Also moved on with the forks. Kit triclamp has been cut and i have filed som concave shapes to fit the fork legs later on.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/C760AEFF-5CDC-4F3E-8C66-9CED90EA260E.jpg

Thanks for watching!

Forks are being shaped using aluminum and styrene tubing together with some putty work. Forks will be integrated with the tri clamp.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/0F58CFD9-E29A-4179-ABB5-BEC2493EFB1B.jpg

This is Joel from facebook?

Regardless this is one seriously awesome build. Respect to you to keep at it for such a long time too.

I will be spending many hours reading this whole topic (large and long topics usually scare me lol!)

Keep up the great work dude!

The same :-)

Well, the thread is getting quite long due to rethinking of the project along the way. I pretty much left the initial idea of the swing arm and frame set up. But all in all I tend to like long threads when it is a rare kit or much scratch building. Sharing ideas are the best in the modelling community, sad enough the forums tend to be quite slow. FB is faster and more easily accessable but on the other hand it is easy to just push that like button and move on.

So I've put some effort into making it possible to try the stance with the swing/rear wheel installed. A lot has still to be done but I'm satisfied and will not rework it anymore, just move on to finish it!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/15BEA1F1-3607-4488-9E8F-50CA3E58D091.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/6B811402-8793-42D4-A83B-0B35F735B4F1.jpg

Rework of the caliper mounts turned out crap. They will be cut again and I'll fix the angle.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/9DBF18DE-A0B9-4217-8EA8-3B612147688C.jpg

The whole thing is unstable in this mock-up but the swing has its final position. Will stiffen it up with rod and glue. Frame will be curved to follow the fender.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/89599A8E-84DA-41D1-AAB4-83989CB58878.jpg

Only large decission to make is what type of handle bar to use.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/chopper/D1691322-EBF7-43D4-919A-FF32EE2BC7C2.jpg

Looking good Joel.

One remark, looking at the last pictures it seems that the bike is not fully in line. There is an offset to the left. Maybe it's because it's not glued together.

David

Looking good Joel.

One remark, looking at the last pictures it seems that the bike is not fully in line. There is an offset to the left. Maybe it's because it's not glued together.

David

Exactly, can't swear to that it will line up in the end but most of the off set in that picture is due to the unstable conditions of the mock-up! Thanks for the comment!