Custom Motorbike Construction: Books - Motorcycle Engineering

Adventure Motorcycle Maintenance Manual

The essential manual to all the skills needed to maintain and prepare a modern adventure motorcycle. New in paperback, this manual is the definitive guide to keeping an adventure motorcycle running in the way it should.
Written for the rider who wants to be self-reliant while on the road, it takes the reader through a series of practical, hands-on techniques designed to keep the bike in peak riding condition. In the classic Haynes style, the book uses picture-led chapters and clear step-by-step instructions to demonstrate the skills needed for basic maintenance both at home and on the trail.

Author Greg Baker is a very experienced motorcycle enthusiast, having owned more than 35 different motorcycles and ridden adventure-style through various terrains around the world.

Customizing Your Motorcycle - Shed-Built to Show Bike

Building a custom motorcycle has never been more popular, with even the major manufacturers keen to capitalize on the growing trend. A custom motorbike is the product of an owner using their own skills to produce an individual machine, and with the right tools and approach it is well within most people's means to take a standard machine, new or second-hand, and make it their personal statement.

Providing clear and practical advice, this new book, "Customizing Your Motorcycle - Shed-Built to Show Bike" introduces the reader to the techniques and processes needed to customize any motorcycle.

Eschewing the practice of using expensive off-the-shelf parts, it shows how the shrewd use of salvaged and alternative sources is not only economic but also results in a satisfyingly unique custom machine.
Projects demonstrate how to make custom parts, while examples of how different custom bikes were built by the author show how they are designed and put together.

The Build : Insights from the Masters of Custom Motorcycle Design

In The Build, Robert Hoekman Jr compiles insights from today's best builders to help you plot out your own beautiful beast.
Loaded with photos, The Build features firsthand advice from the masters of moto design, including John Ryland (Classified Moto), Alan Stulberg (Revival Cycles), Jared Johnson (Holiday Customs), Jarrod DelPrado (DP Customs), and the legendary Max Hazan (Hazan Motorworks).

The Build is as much a 192-page motorcycle art book as it is a blueprint to building the perfect custom bike. The book is the bible of custom motorcycle design, starting with an explanation of all the different bike styles, and then moving into a concise, easy-to-read guide that takes from finding a donor bike to figuring out how to alter the lines to your liking.

The book also covers selecting and building parts, painting and finishing, and what kind of performance modifications might be appropriate. It's time to do it yourself.

Custom Motorcycle Fabrication : Materials, Welding, Mill and Lathe 101, Chassis Assembly

This book starts at the beginning with a discussion of the materials commonly used to fabricate custom motorcycle frames, fenders, brackets, and all the rest. This discussion includes steel, stainless steel, and aluminum. Joining metal (that is, welding) is an essential part of building almost anything and the copy here includes TIG and MIG welding, as well as Stick and Oxy/Acetylene welding.

In each case, the author covers sub topics including penetration, strength, getting started, and the relative size of the heat affected zone. Most custom motorcycle frames, as well as many of the brackets that hold things together, are made from tubing.
Thus, the book includes an entire section on bending and notching tubing to achieve a precise fit between any two parts prior to welding. A good fabricator must be skilled at machining on both a mill and a lathe.

The author walks the reader through the basics for both types of machining: set up, cutting speed, tools, lubrication, cooling, and safety. Some commonly fabricated parts such as handle bars and exhaust systems are covered as separate topics, along with sections on building simple brackets and mounts.

Advanced Custom and Motorcycle Assembly and Fabrication Manual

What started in the mid 1990s, when a few people decided to build stock Softails from aftermarket parts because they couldn't buy one at the dealer, has evolved into a full-blown industry. Today, every small town has a Chopper or Custom bike shop and every cable TV channel has a Biker Build-Off series.
No longer content to build copies of stock motorcycles, today's builder wants a motorcycle that's longer, lower, and sexier than anything approved by a factory design team.

Part catalog, part service manual, and part inspiration, this book offers help with planning the project, getting the right look and actually assembling that custom bike you've dreamed about for years.
Three start-to-finish sequences show not just how the best bikes are bolted together, but how the unique one-off gas tanks are shaped and then covered with candy brandywine paint.

How to Airbrush, Pinstripe and Goldleaf

This is the complete how-to book, showing both beginning and experienced artists how to airbrush, pinstripe, and goldleaf. Meant for automotive and motorcycle applications, the projects seen in this book are done primarily with automotive paints because of their durability and super bright pigments.
The projects themselves range from simple airbrush and pinstripe art, to more complex graphics and flame jobs that require the use of all three art forms. 12 start-to-finish how-to sequences make up the bulk of this book. Each is documented from the first sketch to the multiple steps that lead to finished art. Nothing is left out, the photo record of each project is thorough and captures each part of the process. Captions are written by the artists, making each chapter more like a one-on-one teaching session than a simple how-to lesson.

Each of these sequences is done by a well known artist, men and women like Leah Gall, Lenni Schwartz, Vince Goodeve, and East Coast Artie. And each artist takes time out from painting for a Q&A session. Learn why Leah Gall uses an Iwata airbrush, why Lenni Schwartz prefers a double-zero brush from Mack and which brand of gold leaf Keith Hanson prefers.
With 144 pages and over 500 color photos, "How-To: Airbrush, Pinstripe and Goldleaf" belongs on the book shelf of any aspiring or established artist.