mandag 28. januar 2013

It is not gold all that glitters

Let us go back in time for a moment.
It's late forties and and we have still not entered space age, plastic and all related is new and what people want. It is like carbon fiber in the early nineties.
Now we know neither plastic now carbon fiber will last forever. Plastic rottens, gets dried by the sun and carbon fiber suck water and get a grey look when exposed to the sun (check out any Duce used in rain and sun).
When Harley made their windshield bag for the Panhead, there was no doubt it had to be made in a plastic material resembling leather, this to ensure it was up to date.
Today we would name this product imitate leather, and to make the product even worse for generations to come, Harleys imitated leather was stiffened by gluing it to some sort of paper that eventually will suck water and change shape when it dries.
By no means could this product be softened by some leather grease and brought back to life again.

These facts are not obvious when looking at the prices of original windshield bags on e-pay.
As I have had a couple of days waiting for needle rollers for my gearbox I found there was time to look into recreating a windshield bag for Bessie based on an original sample

As my sample was in a pretty bad condition, making a new bag in leather included making all the steel work except from the silver on the lock`s front plate, all GREAT FUN!

Below is a step by step procedure, this including visiting a friend who owns a more than 100 years old leather sewing machine made by Singer, and YES Roald really knows how to operate this sewing beast by its foot pedal.
Those Singer guys for sure knew how to make a quality product, imagine how many people have once earned their daily income by working on a machine like this!



  Original Windshield bag by Harley!
 Hardware kit in SS.

 Cardboard samples makes the next one simpler to do!
Leather is cut!


 Sewing in progress.
 Have lasted for more than 100 years, in daily use. Beat that!!
 My leather tools.
 Roald the saddler!


 Adding the stainless hardware.
 Done!
 Jewela and leather trim from Dixie!
 Detatchable fastener for Buco shield.

Mounted to Bessies Buco windshield.






My bag is made to fit a original BUCO shield, anyone fancy one bag like this PM me and I will consider making a small batch. All steel work is stainless offshore quality A4. Jewels and leather trim is old Dixie products, except from the stars.

5 kommentarer:

  1. Fantastic work!

    I have a set of the small Buco bags for loan if you want to try reproduce a set. They are a bit small for long rides though..

    SvarSlett
  2. Jeff, thanks a lot for your comment, leather is actually a very pleasant material to work with.

    Halvor, I remember seeing your bucos when I was at your place. As you said yourself, quite small. I do have the big ones (repop) for my Pan. They have the plastic inner panel, will replace this with leather when I get back home from work next.

    SvarSlett
  3. Kjempeflott handarbeid! Alltid imponerende hva folk kan!!

    SvarSlett
  4. Joda. bare man vil noe hardt nok er det utroligt hva en kan få til, kombinere dette med å være litt kjip og man har muligheten til å lære det meste :-)

    SvarSlett