progress

A Day Late and a Dollar Short
Shame on me, I'm at least 4 weeks late with this blog, but I have good excuses.
Excuse #1 - We've overhauled the web site.
Though it may look much the same, the web site contains new features and is very different under the surface. The software used to create our old site was out of date, so Steve created what you see here, complete with a tech section, a clip from our first DVD (How to Build a Bobber) and a shopping cart for ordering. The new software makes it easier for us to make changes in-house, without the need to send all the information and photos to the web master. Speaking of web masters, I have to thank Steve Delmont for all his work creating a new site that looks at first much like our old site.

Excuse #2 the New Tattoo book
We have just finished our first Tattoo book: Advanced Tattoo Art. Based on our "art of" format, the new book, written and photographed by Doug Mitchel, follows ten tattoo artists as they work through the process, from the concept to the finished tattoo. As always, each chapter includes an interview with the tattoo artist so you can find out what makes his or her work special, how they became a tattoo artist and what kind of tools and techniques they prefer. The format makes for a very colorful book, with well over 500 color images spread across 144 pages. The design works both to teach in a how-to fashion, and entertain. Advanced Tattoo Art is in stock and sells for $24.95 + S&H.

Excuse #3 the New Pinstripe book
The format we used for the Tattoo book is the same one we used for the new Pinstripe book, which goes to the printer shortly. The book includes work of well-known masters like Jon Kosmoski and Steve Wizard, as well as some undiscovered artists like Mark Peters. The book will be available later this fall, look for more information in the next blog.

Both books utilize over 500 color images that show each operation from the first sketch to the finished art work, whether the art work is done on human skin or a steel motorcycle tank.

Road Trips
My favorite road trip of the year is the one that takes me roughly 700 miles west to the little city of Sturgis, South Dakota. For me it's ten or eleven hours in my truck with the trailer behind. My excuse for not riding is the camera equipment and the books I take for various vendors, and the fact that the calendar shoots we do (more later) often require trailering the long Perewitz-built customs up to the top of some small mountain so we can park the bike in front of the perfect Black Hills vista.

This year we discovered some new vistas and backgrounds on the ranch owned by Kim Kling. The Kling family runs the Stone House Saloon on Highway 34 west of Belle Fourche. Years ago we used the stone house as a backdrop for the calendar and over the years we've become friends. Kim, Chris and crew always give us the run of the Saloon and, this year, the ranch nearby.

So at sunrise on Wednesday of Rally week, I hooked up with David and Scott, two hard-working Cycle Fab employees. We spent the next five hours moving four motorcycles into various positions on Kim's ranch. Grunting heavy motorcycles across the prairie and up and down rock formation, all the while wondering if there were any rattle snakes nearby. For lunch we had bottled water from the cooler and peanut and jelly sandwiches. It turned out to be worth it in the end. Usually we only get one or two photo shoots done per day, so to get four done "at once" was a great leap forward. As always, I'm grateful to the crew from the Stone House Saloon for all their help.

By the end of the week we'd managed to shoot nine Perewitz creations for the 2007 Sturgis Best Calendar which is available on our web site for the first time. We are also making our Triumph Calendar available for sale direct from the web site for the first time. Both calendars are currently in stock.

Personal Projects
It could only happen to me. What I really needed to finish the engine assembly for the old Henry J was an oil pan. So I brought one home earlier in the year, had it repaired and painted—and found out it didn't fit. At this point I don't know if I somehow picked up a DeSoto oil pan or just what the hell happened. Maybe I can have it pinstriped and hang it on the wall.

Anyway, Neal Letouneau is fabricating me an oil pan from pieces as I write this, so with any luck I can finish assembling the engine and get it back in the chassis. Which will free up some garage space so I can park inside this winter (what a concept).

In the meantime we are trying to get in a few late season rides. Like yesterday when Mary and I took the 250 soft-tail up to Osceola, Wisconsin for the one-day car and bike show hosted by Motorbooks, the company that distributes our books to the big chain stores. After looking over everything from a 1924 Royal Enfield to a 2006 Lamborghini we said goodbye to friends and made our way down a series of winding two-lanes to Prescott, Wisconsin and one of our favorite watering holes. Muddy Waters has a huge deck on the backside, overlooking the St. Croix River where it meets the Mississippi. Before long we were having a nice conversation with Mike and Terry, a local couple and owners of a late-model Fat Boy. All too soon it was time to be responsible and head for home along the Minnesota side of the St. Croix, on one of my favorite pieces of asphalt. It doesn't get much better than rolling past the wallowing four wheelers, listening to the bark of the pipes. Those speed limit signs are just a suggestion anyway.

Rides like this bring an extra level of enjoyment because those of us who live in the great white north know that before long our bikes will be hidden away in garages and shops, waiting for the return of warm weather.

The good news: The How to Build a Bobber book is finally at the printer,and we should have finished copies ready to ship by July 5th. Like allour books, this one was a long hard pull, but we can finally put itbehind us. In addition to three assembly sequences that author Kevin Baas did with his high school shop class, there are chapters on things like Frames, Engines and Choosing the Best Primary, 144 pages of Bobber-Building advice from Kevin Baas.

Kevin is hard-core old skool, so the book is mostly Pans and Shovels,with a few Knuckles (and Evos) thrown in for good measure. Once again,it's amazing what people are manufacturing so that the rest of us canbuild some really cool old two-wheeled hot rods. Things like a 120-inchKnucklehead. An old design with a modern left side case and sprocket shaft, which makes it easy to mate the oversized motor with a modern primary, clutch and transmission.

Of course, if what you want is a genuine Panhead with a real four-speed,there are plenty of ways to do that as well. The aftermarket makes wish-bone and straight leg frames with narrow back ends and conservative dimensions. And eBay has plenty of listings for genuine old H-D parts, though experts in the field tell me prices are definitely on the rise.
If an old-skool Bobber is like an itch that just won't go away, this book will definitely help you scratch that itch.

The TV deal
We were on TV again recently. Specifically, on Speed TV during Mike Corbin's Ride-On show, May 16th. Being somewhat shy by nature, it's hard to watch myself on TV. The reviews, from friends at least, are good. So this is a good thing, right? Looking back at my sometimes miss-spentyouth, I gotta say: "who would've thunk it?" Back in the day when I was putting ball joints in a Chevy or a clutch in a Saab, I sure wasn't thinking about publishing books or promoting those books on TV. More likely I was thinking about the women walking through the shop, or how long until I could get a tall cool one at the local watering hole. Perhaps what's most interesting about my publishing venture is not the publishing itself but all the places it's taken me.

And one of those places is into new relationships. In this case it's a relationship with a man I've known for years, Keith Ball from Bikernet.com. We've agreed to become a sponsor on Bikernet, which means Keith will display our logo and provide a link with our web page. Bikernet will also provide information on Wolfgang Publications and Wolfgang products. Keith will also display a monthly tech article that we provide.

Projects
For summer entertainment I have the blue 250 soft-tail bike. In fact, I was entertaining myself, and anyone else nearby, the other day and had a little mishap. Seems the starter button stuck, but as the engine caught I was too busy ripping out of the parking lot to notice. I did notice when the motor went "CLUNK" and quit. If you haven't had a starter drive assembly out lately, the drive is supported by a larger bushing in the inner primary. In my case the drive was supported in this fashion for a couple of blocks. Long enough that the spinning drive spun the bushing out of the bore in the inner primary (where it belongs) and into a tight spot between the clutch hub and the inner primary (where it doesn't). The bad news includes the embarrassing call to Mary to come and pick me up, and the fear that I'd done something really BAD and really EXPENSIVE. The story does include good news, however. First, a couple of bikers stopped to see if they could help. Second, I didn't break anything expensive. After a complete disassembly I cleaned everything up, installed a new bushing in the inner primary (with green Loctite), some new seals and reassembled the whole shebang. No new starter or drive assembly and no new transmission shaft or clutch hub. What's that old line: it's better to be lucky than good?