Restoration

As I’ve mentioned before, the Panhead book, written by Rick Schunk, walks the reader through all parts of a restoration, from the wiring to repair of the Pan-heads. How to Airbrush Pin-Ups, available from either Wolfgang or ArtKulture, provides seven start-to-finish pin-up painting sequences as a means or explaining exactly what it takes to create a beautiful, sexy pin-up. Each photo sequence is done with a professional airbrush artist, and each one has something unique to say about creating the image, mixing paint, and the best use of color.

Panheads might be more popular now than they were when new. Restore yours with help from our newest restoration book. With airbrushing sequences from people like Edward Reed, Steve Driscoll and Susan Heidi, the How To Airbrush Pin-Ups book brings a wealth of information and experience to each reader.

Good Sales in a Poor Economy

I recently took a look at book sales through August, and the results were somewhat surprising. Two of our best, most consistent sellers, are books that are anything but brand new. Advance Tattoo Art from 2006, a book that’s primarily tattooing sequences, continues to sell well and create good royalty payments for the author, Doug Mitchel.

Though published in 2006, Advance Tattoo Art is still selling very well through the big book chains.

In a completely different category, How to Build a Cheap Chopper from 2004 just kind of plugs along like a good annuity. The income is great of course, but it’s equally great to know that people are still interested in building bikes at home – a trend that many of us thought died when the economy went in the tank.

It’s nice to know that people are still building Bobbers and Choppers at home with help from this early Wolfgang book.

Triumph Motorcycle Restoration Pre Unit and Composite Materias - Our 2 newest titles will be in stock at Wolfgang by June 7.

On The Road Again

This week finds me in upstate New York, home to TV’s favorite chopper builders, Orange County Choppers.

No, I don’t know senior, or junior for that matter. Luckily I do know Skeeter Todd, who works behind the scenes at OCC. Skeeter explained to me recently that OCC was using House of Kolor Paint. It just so happens that we have a new Jon Kosmoski Kustom Painting book coming out next year. So when Skeeter told me that OCC is now using Jon’s paint, and that he could get me into the shop to shoot some paint sequences, I immediately singed on for a three-day stay.

What I learned shortly after my arrival is the fact that there’s a whole lot more to OCC than what we see on TV every week.

For size and class, the new OCC building in Newburgh, NY puts a lot of Harley dealerships to shame.

As you might expect, there’s a giant sales floor, with everything from endless T-shirt racks, to branded OCC bikes. What you might not expect is the section dedicated to Ducati sales. This includes the full Ducati line, along with branded jackets and assorted products.

The show floor includes this group of OCC bikes scheduled to ship out to Canadian dealers.

Over in a different corner of the sales floor is an unusual addition to the rows of motorcycles and racks of leather jackets – a bandstand. Yup, OCC has their own Rock N Roll band, and in the afternoons they’re likely to crank it up for a practice session, meaning anyone shopping at that time gets the benefit of a free concert.

Every garage needs a Garage Band. At OCC they know how to have a hell of a good time building motorcycles.

It’s when you get off the sales floor though that things get really interesting. First, there’s the huge shop, complete with the lifts and equipment seen so often on TV. But wait, there’s more. Like a complete, and I mean complete, machine shop, with a row of CNC machines, and a five-axis water jet that’s handy for cutting cool shapes out of three-dimensional objects, like fenders.

For designing the fenders, and the bikes, and their own wheels, there’s a design center with powerful computer, talented operator and a 3-D printer. What this means is that you can design a wheel, or a tank or a complete bike, and the little box to the right of the computer will “print” a 3-D version of that object – in a reduced size of course.

There’s also a huge press, which means the OCC crew can stamp out their own parts, after first designing the plug on the computer and having it cut on one of the CNC machines.

There isn’t a hell of a lot that they can’t manufacture in house at OCC. And when it’s time for paint, well there are three talented painters in-house who can handle everything from basecoat/clearcoat to elaborate airbrushed designs.

If the crew at OCC wants to know what a certain design actually looks like in three dimensions they just create the image on the screen and then hit “print.”

Maybe that’s the really interesting part of the story. That in addition to the talent seen on TV, there’s another whole level of talent. The mostly unseen crew who toil away quietly making fenders, molding welds and painting motorcycles.

At OCC it’s all about teamwork. Combining the talent with the talent to create some pretty cool motorcycles.

The huge show room is ringed by many of the theme bikes created for the TV.