road trip

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 The software used to create our old site was out of date, so Steve created what you see here, complete with a tech section, a clip from our first DVD (How to Build a Bobber) and a shopping cart for ordering.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.

Here at Wolfgang we're jamming along trying to get all of our new products finished for the Spring of 2006 (note the release dates posted to the right). The Spanish-Language edition of Advanced Custom Painting Techniques is at the printer and we hope to have finished copies available by mid-April. And one of our hot rod books, How to Wire Your Hot Rod, by Dennis Overholser, ships to the printer any day now and should be off the press some time in late April. Similar to a book Dennis and I did about eight years ago, this new book is all color, includes a variety of wiring schematics, and covers everything from the ins and outs of a typical starter circuit, to the installation of a complete wiring harness. Of all the jobs that are required in building a hot rod, wiring is often the most intimidating. Our new book is designed to eliminate that fear-factor so you can tackle the wiring with the same confidence you display while working on the more typically "mechanical" parts of the building process.

Road Trip, Part Two
Regular readers will recall the trip I made to Cincinnati for the V- Twin Expo, and that the route took me through Iowa on my way from Minnesota to Ohio. Part of the reason for driving instead of flying involved two stops I planned along the way.

The first stop, in Anamosa to see J&P Cycles, is already part of an earlier Blog. Near Anamosa is another little city, West Branch, home to Chassis Engineering. Chassis Engineering is a street rod company that manufactures and sells some very interesting and unique products to a certain group of four-wheel motor-heads. Their extensive line of high quality parts come from a physical plant that seems at first far too small. The proof, however, is in the pudding, or the chassis parts in this case. Not only do they manufacture and sell a large line of street rod parts, the facility also houses Roy's private shop. Roy Lewis, the man who started the company, is now retired which means he can spend a portion of each day working away on The World's Fastest Diesel. This long, bullet of a vehicle is powered by a 5.9 liter Cummins diesel, essentially the same engine found in Dodge diesel pick up trucks.

The difference, though, between Roy's diesel and the one in your Ram truck comes down to boost. The streamliner uses a hundred pounds of oomph to obtain a speed of 282 miles per hour, fast enough for the title World's fastest Diesel. The liner works fine (obviously) but of course Roy wants more speed, which means more boost. More boost means more heat, which tends to shorten the life of certain components like pistons and valves. During my visit Roy was working on water injection as a way to cool the beast and extend the life of those essential engine parts.

When asked "who drives it?" Roy answers simply, "I do." Which means Burt Munro isn't the only older gentleman to enjoy an obsession for speed. When I could finally pull myself away from Roy and his streamliner (and an substantial supply of old Chrysler Hemis) it was time to talk with old-friend Eric Aurand, and Roy's daughter Jean Donovan and her husband Jim, about some future collaborative projects between Chassis Engineering and Wolfgang Publications.

Before leaving I was even able to talk Roy out of a necessary part I need for a certain old Hemi in a certain old Henry J. Thus the road trip succeeded not only as an excuse to see old friends but also as a way to make some new ones. And no matter how many projects I find in shops and garages across the land, I never cease to be amazed at the creative power of the typical American motor-head.

Life on the road. Sometimes lonely but never dull.

New Products:
One of the books responsible for making Wolfgang Publications a success is Ultimate V-Twin Motorcycle. Part catalog and part assembly manual, the book I published in 1995 is still selling in modest numbers more than ten years later--with three or four revisions along the way.

We are currently planning to bring out a totally overhauled version of the Ultimate V-Twin book titled: Advanced Custom Motorcycle ASSEMBLY & FABRICATION. Like the earlier book, this one is part catalog and part assembly manual; and like that earlier book this one is all about helping people build a bike of their own from scratch. Unlike that earlier book, which follows and explains the assembly of bikes that seem conservative today, the new ASSEMBLY & FABRICATION book documents the assembly of very modern bikes. Bikes like the long, hand-fabricated 300 tire custom from the Donnie Smith shop and the Bobber from the shop of Dave Perewitz. Not only does the bike document the assembly, in the case of the Donnie Smith bike the book also shows each step in the fabrication of the one-off gas tank created by master tin-man Rob-Roehl.

The early chapters of the new book discuss topics like Motorcycle Design, Frames, Suspension Components, Sheet Metal and Wiring. The front of the book is meant to help builders make good decisions from the vast array of parts available from the V-Twin aftermarket. The back of the book, containing the assembly chapters, is meant to help those same builders assemble that huge pile of parts into a very cool custom motorcycle.

Road Trip
As noted in an earlier blog, I attended the V-Twin Show in Cincinnati in early February. Though it doesn't make much sense to drive to Cincinnati, Ohio from Stillwater, Minnesota, I did it that way because of two planned stops in Iowa. On Monday preceding the show I stopped to see John Parham of J&P Cycles in Anamosa, Iowa, which is near Cedar Rapids. If you haven't seen the J&P retail store, and more important, the motorcycle museum housed in a building in downtown Anamosa, you need to stop by. Though most of us think of J&P as a mail order company, their retail store is big, well lit and stocked with an amazing variety of parts. Variety is likewise the best word I can use to describe the bikes in the museum. Other adjectives might include amazing, high quality and awesome. Occupying two floors, the bikes include Harleys from 1908 and board track racers by Indian, Harley and Merkel from the teens. The bikes range from very early Harleys, Indians and Hendersons to the board track racers already mentioned, to European bikes like Vincent (three examples when I was there), Brough Superior and Moto Guzzi. For those of us who grew up on Japanese bikes there's a full compliment of Hondas, Kawis and Yamahas starting in the 1960s.

In addition to the bikes there's a huge display of memorabilia, toys and artwork. Sculptures in Bronze put the board track racers in another perspective, while the toy collections makes me wish I'd kept some of those old tin toys from days gone by. Of course, the walls are filled with fine art paintings and a big collection of posters. There's a sign advertising a desert race on one wall and another announcing a certain very important movie from the late 1960s.

I know it's a cliche but if you don't find a whole lot of machines in John's museum that put a huge smile on your face you've got no business riding on two wheels.