Building a Custom Motorcycle Frame: Part 1

As I sat at my workbench, staring at the array of parts and tools in front of me, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and trepidation. This was going to be a project like no other – a custom motorcycle frame from scratch. I had a vision in mind, but I knew that bringing it to life would require patience, persistence, and a willingness to learn.

I started by cutting down a piece of flat steel to the right size for the back assembly. The goal was to create a sturdy foundation that would support the entire frame. I marked out the dimensions carefully, making sure that every measurement was precise. Once I had finished cutting, I used a hammer and chisel to shape the metal into its final form. It wasn't easy – there were plenty of trial and error moments as I experimented with different techniques and approaches.

As the back assembly took shape, I turned my attention to the front end. I marked out the position of the petals, using a cut off wheel to carefully remove excess material. The goal was to create a smooth, aerodynamic surface that would allow the bike to move easily and efficiently through the air. After careful planning and execution, the first petal was finally in place.

But before I could proceed with adding the second petal, I needed to address the issue of the axle. I marked out the position of the axle, using a marker to indicate where the bolts would be placed. With a confident stroke, I used a drill press to carefully create the holes for the axle bolts. The next step was to weld the head of the bolt to the back side of the bracket and then attach the nut to the other side. This would provide a secure and stable foundation for the entire frame.

With the back assembly complete, I turned my attention to the wheels. I cut down another piece of flat steel, this time using it as a template for the wheel design. The goal was to create a sturdy, aerodynamic wheel that would allow the bike to move quickly and efficiently through the air. After careful planning and execution, the first wheel was finally in place.

To assemble the wheels, I used washers and nuts to secure them firmly in position. This was a delicate operation – one misstep could result in disaster. But with patience and care, I managed to get everything lined up perfectly, creating a sturdy and reliable foundation for the entire frame.

As I progressed through the build process, I encountered plenty of challenges and setbacks. There were times when I doubted my abilities, wondered if I was on the right track, or felt overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of the project. But with each new challenge came an opportunity to learn, adapt, and improve. And slowly but surely, the frame began to take shape.

One of the most significant challenges I faced during this build process was getting the wheels onto the back assembly. This proved to be a tricky operation – requiring a combination of patience, skill, and careful planning. But with the right tools and techniques, I finally managed to get everything lined up perfectly, creating a smooth and aerodynamic surface that allowed the bike to move easily and efficiently through the air.

With the wheels in place, I turned my attention to adding the pedals. This proved to be another tricky operation – requiring careful planning, precise execution, and a healthy dose of patience. But with each new challenge came an opportunity to learn, adapt, and improve. And slowly but surely, the pedals began to take shape.

Finally, after weeks of hard work and dedication, I was ready to add the finishing touches to the frame. I marked out the position of the seat brackets, using a marker to indicate where the bolts would be placed. With a confident stroke, I used a drill press to carefully create the holes for the seat bracket bolts. The next step was to weld the head of the bolt to the back side of the bracket and then attach the nut to the other side.

As I progressed through this final stage of the build process, I encountered plenty of challenges and setbacks. There were times when I doubted my abilities, wondered if I was on the right track, or felt overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of the project. But with each new challenge came an opportunity to learn, adapt, and improve. And slowly but surely, the seat began to take shape.

With the seat finally in place, I turned my attention to adding the final touches – screws, bolts, and washers. This was a delicate operation – one misstep could result in disaster. But with patience and care, I managed to get everything lined up perfectly, creating a sturdy and reliable foundation for the entire frame.

The finished frame looked stunning – sleek, powerful, and utterly bespoke. It was a testament to my skills, dedication, and perseverance. And as I stood back to admire my handiwork, I knew that all the hard work had been worth it. The motorcycle was finally coming together, piece by piece, into something truly special.

With the frame complete, I turned my attention to adding the final touches – paint, decals, and accessories. This was a delicate operation – one misstep could result in disaster. But with patience and care, I managed to get everything lined up perfectly, creating a stunning finish that showcased the bike's true personality.

And so, after weeks of hard work and dedication, my custom motorcycle frame was finally complete. It was a testament to my skills, dedication, and perseverance – a shining example of what could be achieved with patience, persistence, and a willingness to learn. The journey had been long and winding, but the end result was well worth it – a bike that was truly one-of-a-kind.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey I'm Bob but I like to make stuff and today we're gonna make this when I was a kid I always wanted this thing called a green machine it was kind of like a big wheel except instead of steering with handlebars you actually use two levers to control the back axle it's pretty different so obviously I need to make one but for this project instead of just buying all new materials I'm going to try to reuse as much as I possibly can so I went to the local secondhand store and got a few things the first thing I got from the store was this simple bed frame it was five bucks and there's quite a bit of Steel in here I can use for the frame and the second thing I'm going to use for the levers crutches these were just a few dollars also and they are made of full aluminum rods so I think they'll be perfect the last thing I really needed was a used bike I actually couldn't find a small BMX bike because I was looking for a 20-in tire but I did find this old exercise bike it actually looks pretty sweet right now but it's going to look even cooler later it's got a lot of things I need on it like pedals it's got gearing it's got a front wheel with a solid rubber tire this is going to work out pretty well all right let's tear this stuff apart the crutches came apart really easily they're held together by some bolts and some rivets that I just drilled out I saved as many of these pieces as I could cuz I didn't know what I was going to use all the rivets on the crutches were made of aluminum so they're super easy to drill out with a normal drill bit but the ones on the bed frame which is everything are all made out of steel it's going to take a lot longer to drill those out so instead we're going to use a grinder I used a cuto off wheel here to remove the mushroomed part and the rest of it just kind of ground down or popped out with a nail punch then I just chopped off the ends because I didn't need them on these pieces so as far as the exercise bike I'm not even sure what all I'm going to need yet so I'm only going to take off the stuff that I know I need which is the pedals because these are actually Bolton so they easily come off and can go on to whatever I use next I'm going to need the front wheel as far as the metal frame I imagine I'll probably use a lot of it eventually but I'm not exactly sure what yet I tried to save as many parts of this bike as I could cuz I wasn't really sure what I was going to use to use the front wheel I just had to pop out the bearings I wanted the front wheel on this to be a direct drive straight from the pedals just like a big wheel so I found a piece of metal on the bike and then drilled out some large washers to make holes for that piece of metal to fit through this way I could run it through the center of the wheel and add the washers to weld it in place and hold the whole thing together I drilled the same size hole in the end of the pedals so that they would slide right on the rod using a drill here worked fine but the drill press was just faster and cleaner it still wasn't quite big enough so I just used a file to open it up so that the rod would fit through well the second pedal was attached to the sprocket so I just had to grind that off once all these pieces would at least slide together it was time to start welding I laid the washer over the hole and got it centered as best as I could and then added some tack welds just to hold it in place I flipped the wheel over put on the other washer and then drove the axle through to make sure that they lined up did the same tack welds on that side just to make sure that everything would Spin and it was lined up correctly once it spun fine I went ahead and did welds all the way around it to permanently attach those washers to the outside of the Hub I slid the axle through found about the center point and then added some welds to the side to permanently attach it to the washers eventually all this got fully welded and cleaned up I laid out some of the angle iron and figured out where I would need to sit relative to the wheel then I cut down the angle iron and started to make some Square Tubing buying a piece of square tubing would have been a lot easier and I'll show you why I cut two pieces of angle iron down to the same length and then clamped them down to the table I used a flap disc to remove some of the paint so I had a good surface to weld to I set the two pieces together to make a square now it didn't quite work out like I wanted it to but holding them in place I added some tack welds to hold them together you can see on the end here that these actually fell out of alignment and I welded them up in the wrong position I had to break this apart and redo those TS but after that I went back and filled in the weld in between all the tacks it turned out all right and eventually I took it to the grinder to grind those down not flush but better the axle was a little bit too big for the bearings that I had bought so I used a flap disc to kind of sand it down to make it fit eventually they went on really nicely so with the bearing setting in place I held the square tubing over it to figure out how long it needed to be for the fork I cut the square tubing down into two pieces and then marked the location for where the bearing needed to go for this bearing I needed to cut out an area for the axle to go through and for two areas for the bolts to go through to hold the bearing I used a punch to make it easier to start start the drilling for those and then used a step bit on my drill press to drill these holes out and by the way this is sped way up you have to drill pretty slowly through steel or you'll burn up your bits eventually I had all these holes drilled from both sides on both pieces and then I had to cut out the big section for the axle I started to drill it out and then realized that a band saw would be a much faster and more effective way to do it so I cut a few lines in on both sides and then right down the center I use a cuto off wheel to kind of score the top and the bottom and then a hammer just to knock these pieces out it's maybe not elegant but it worked pretty well I did a quick mockup with the bearings just to make sure everything fit together this doesn't have the spacers that would be necessary for the bearing to actually turn at this point I slid these onto the axle to make sure everything would turn correctly and to figure out how far apart both pieces of the fork needed to be then I cut some pieces of flat iron that I had to buy and then held them in place and Tack welded them on to make the fork figuring out how to build a fork was actually kind of tough and it took me a long time I wasn't sure that it was going to be strong enough and in the end it turned out to be plenty strong the center piece of the bike was just another piece of square tubing run right through the middle of the fork this was also tubing made from the bed frames eventually once I had all these pieces held together I went back and filled in all the welds on all the different surfaces there was quite a bit here then it was time to figure out the rear axle the axle had to Pivot on the center frame so I used some flat iron to make a bracket I drew some marks and scored those marks with a cut off wheel and then cut the piece to to length then I just had to hammer it into shape I used an old piece of Steel here to hammer around on the edges to get it to fold along the score lines that i' made eventually I got it to a point where I could bend it mostly by hand and then wrap it around the square tubing and Hammer it in its final position I used another piece of flat steel to help reinforce it along the bottom I got this all centered and lined up and then welded it all together I used a grinder to clean it up and round over some of the sharp Corners I held this on the body clamped it in place and then found the center point there was a lot of Steel to drill through here so I used some oil and a new bit I got through the top piece and then got through the bottom piece and needed to make a hole deep enough so that I could Mark the bottom side the holes all the way through top to bottom all needed to line up eventually I got a small enough hole through all of it that I could fill them out with the right size hole I used washers and nuts to hold the whole thing together assembly at this point was kind of loose and I didn't really tighten anything down didn't use any Loctite I really just wanted to make sure that everything fit and moved as it should adding the wheels to this back assembly was another thing I didn't really have figured out and I wasn't sure the best way to do it I kind of followed the same procedure by cutting down a piece of flat steel to the right size and then marking where I needed to score it I hammered these into shape again along the score marks to make sure that they wrapped around the square tubing there was definitely some trial and error to get these into the right shape but eventually I got them to fit pretty well to make it easier to drill these I put them on some pieces of wood and put that hole assembly in the Vise then I could drill right down through should have just drilled the holes with the drill press before I bent the pieces of metal with these drilled out I just ran in the long bolt that I was going to use and then tighten down a nut to hold all this together so the idea here is for this thing to slide onto this get welded in place and the wheel to go on the outside of this I have no clue if this is strong enough we'll find out I'm just letting you know I don't know if this is going to work there's potential for a lot of points of failure in this so I just did the best I could I welded the head of the bolt to the back side of the bracket and then welded the nut to the other side I slid this piece into place and clamped it down to hold it in place while I added welds all the way around eventually I filled it in and did the other side in the exact same way then I just slid on a washer the wheel a washer and a couple of nuts to tighten at the end I was ready to add the petals to the front end but first I needed to trim off some of the extra axle I marked where these petals went and then just use a cut off wheel to cut off that extra piece I filed down that edge and then slid on the pedal I use some tack welds to hold this first one in place it doesn't really matter where it goes the important thing is lining up the second one so I got the second one lined up on the other side to make sure that they were parallel and then I tacked it in place as well then it was time to mount the seat that I wanted to be adjustable I knocked off some pieces of brackets from the bed frame and then cut down a piece of MDF the size of this MDF is just a little bit bigger than where the bolt B holes are on the bottom of the plastic seat that I had bought I drilled through the board to match with the holes in the bottom of the seat and then used a big bit to counter syn them on the underside I clamped this board to the frame and then held these little brackets up to it to figure where they needed to be cut off I used a cuto off wheel just to cut them to shape I also cut down a piece of Steel to put in between these two brackets to connect them I made sure that this piece was wide enough to span both of the brackets so that I could weld everything together but before that I marked and drilled a hole to add something to tight in the seat I used a tap to make some threads on the inside of this hole these threads matched up with the knob that I had got at the local Home Center I welded all three of the pieces of the bracket together and then grinded them down to smooth it out before attaching the rest of the seat I made sure that it slid along the frame and it wasn't too tight then I just pre-drilled some holes and held the two pieces together while attaching them with bolts and washers and nuts this was ready to mount the seat unfortunately there was no convenient way to do that I just had to stand the frame on its side and hold the seat in place while driving in the screws it wasn't hard it was just awkward and there it was a mostly complete frame back wheels front wheels pedals and the seat that's it for part one of this video be sure to come back next week for part two you can see it in action and see how I finish up the project and when that video is available it will be right here I've also got a bunch of other projects that you might be interested in so be sure to check those out and don't forget to subscribe that's it for this one thanks for watching I'll see you next weekhey I'm Bob but I like to make stuff and today we're gonna make this when I was a kid I always wanted this thing called a green machine it was kind of like a big wheel except instead of steering with handlebars you actually use two levers to control the back axle it's pretty different so obviously I need to make one but for this project instead of just buying all new materials I'm going to try to reuse as much as I possibly can so I went to the local secondhand store and got a few things the first thing I got from the store was this simple bed frame it was five bucks and there's quite a bit of Steel in here I can use for the frame and the second thing I'm going to use for the levers crutches these were just a few dollars also and they are made of full aluminum rods so I think they'll be perfect the last thing I really needed was a used bike I actually couldn't find a small BMX bike because I was looking for a 20-in tire but I did find this old exercise bike it actually looks pretty sweet right now but it's going to look even cooler later it's got a lot of things I need on it like pedals it's got gearing it's got a front wheel with a solid rubber tire this is going to work out pretty well all right let's tear this stuff apart the crutches came apart really easily they're held together by some bolts and some rivets that I just drilled out I saved as many of these pieces as I could cuz I didn't know what I was going to use all the rivets on the crutches were made of aluminum so they're super easy to drill out with a normal drill bit but the ones on the bed frame which is everything are all made out of steel it's going to take a lot longer to drill those out so instead we're going to use a grinder I used a cuto off wheel here to remove the mushroomed part and the rest of it just kind of ground down or popped out with a nail punch then I just chopped off the ends because I didn't need them on these pieces so as far as the exercise bike I'm not even sure what all I'm going to need yet so I'm only going to take off the stuff that I know I need which is the pedals because these are actually Bolton so they easily come off and can go on to whatever I use next I'm going to need the front wheel as far as the metal frame I imagine I'll probably use a lot of it eventually but I'm not exactly sure what yet I tried to save as many parts of this bike as I could cuz I wasn't really sure what I was going to use to use the front wheel I just had to pop out the bearings I wanted the front wheel on this to be a direct drive straight from the pedals just like a big wheel so I found a piece of metal on the bike and then drilled out some large washers to make holes for that piece of metal to fit through this way I could run it through the center of the wheel and add the washers to weld it in place and hold the whole thing together I drilled the same size hole in the end of the pedals so that they would slide right on the rod using a drill here worked fine but the drill press was just faster and cleaner it still wasn't quite big enough so I just used a file to open it up so that the rod would fit through well the second pedal was attached to the sprocket so I just had to grind that off once all these pieces would at least slide together it was time to start welding I laid the washer over the hole and got it centered as best as I could and then added some tack welds just to hold it in place I flipped the wheel over put on the other washer and then drove the axle through to make sure that they lined up did the same tack welds on that side just to make sure that everything would Spin and it was lined up correctly once it spun fine I went ahead and did welds all the way around it to permanently attach those washers to the outside of the Hub I slid the axle through found about the center point and then added some welds to the side to permanently attach it to the washers eventually all this got fully welded and cleaned up I laid out some of the angle iron and figured out where I would need to sit relative to the wheel then I cut down the angle iron and started to make some Square Tubing buying a piece of square tubing would have been a lot easier and I'll show you why I cut two pieces of angle iron down to the same length and then clamped them down to the table I used a flap disc to remove some of the paint so I had a good surface to weld to I set the two pieces together to make a square now it didn't quite work out like I wanted it to but holding them in place I added some tack welds to hold them together you can see on the end here that these actually fell out of alignment and I welded them up in the wrong position I had to break this apart and redo those TS but after that I went back and filled in the weld in between all the tacks it turned out all right and eventually I took it to the grinder to grind those down not flush but better the axle was a little bit too big for the bearings that I had bought so I used a flap disc to kind of sand it down to make it fit eventually they went on really nicely so with the bearing setting in place I held the square tubing over it to figure out how long it needed to be for the fork I cut the square tubing down into two pieces and then marked the location for where the bearing needed to go for this bearing I needed to cut out an area for the axle to go through and for two areas for the bolts to go through to hold the bearing I used a punch to make it easier to start start the drilling for those and then used a step bit on my drill press to drill these holes out and by the way this is sped way up you have to drill pretty slowly through steel or you'll burn up your bits eventually I had all these holes drilled from both sides on both pieces and then I had to cut out the big section for the axle I started to drill it out and then realized that a band saw would be a much faster and more effective way to do it so I cut a few lines in on both sides and then right down the center I use a cuto off wheel to kind of score the top and the bottom and then a hammer just to knock these pieces out it's maybe not elegant but it worked pretty well I did a quick mockup with the bearings just to make sure everything fit together this doesn't have the spacers that would be necessary for the bearing to actually turn at this point I slid these onto the axle to make sure everything would turn correctly and to figure out how far apart both pieces of the fork needed to be then I cut some pieces of flat iron that I had to buy and then held them in place and Tack welded them on to make the fork figuring out how to build a fork was actually kind of tough and it took me a long time I wasn't sure that it was going to be strong enough and in the end it turned out to be plenty strong the center piece of the bike was just another piece of square tubing run right through the middle of the fork this was also tubing made from the bed frames eventually once I had all these pieces held together I went back and filled in all the welds on all the different surfaces there was quite a bit here then it was time to figure out the rear axle the axle had to Pivot on the center frame so I used some flat iron to make a bracket I drew some marks and scored those marks with a cut off wheel and then cut the piece to to length then I just had to hammer it into shape I used an old piece of Steel here to hammer around on the edges to get it to fold along the score lines that i' made eventually I got it to a point where I could bend it mostly by hand and then wrap it around the square tubing and Hammer it in its final position I used another piece of flat steel to help reinforce it along the bottom I got this all centered and lined up and then welded it all together I used a grinder to clean it up and round over some of the sharp Corners I held this on the body clamped it in place and then found the center point there was a lot of Steel to drill through here so I used some oil and a new bit I got through the top piece and then got through the bottom piece and needed to make a hole deep enough so that I could Mark the bottom side the holes all the way through top to bottom all needed to line up eventually I got a small enough hole through all of it that I could fill them out with the right size hole I used washers and nuts to hold the whole thing together assembly at this point was kind of loose and I didn't really tighten anything down didn't use any Loctite I really just wanted to make sure that everything fit and moved as it should adding the wheels to this back assembly was another thing I didn't really have figured out and I wasn't sure the best way to do it I kind of followed the same procedure by cutting down a piece of flat steel to the right size and then marking where I needed to score it I hammered these into shape again along the score marks to make sure that they wrapped around the square tubing there was definitely some trial and error to get these into the right shape but eventually I got them to fit pretty well to make it easier to drill these I put them on some pieces of wood and put that hole assembly in the Vise then I could drill right down through should have just drilled the holes with the drill press before I bent the pieces of metal with these drilled out I just ran in the long bolt that I was going to use and then tighten down a nut to hold all this together so the idea here is for this thing to slide onto this get welded in place and the wheel to go on the outside of this I have no clue if this is strong enough we'll find out I'm just letting you know I don't know if this is going to work there's potential for a lot of points of failure in this so I just did the best I could I welded the head of the bolt to the back side of the bracket and then welded the nut to the other side I slid this piece into place and clamped it down to hold it in place while I added welds all the way around eventually I filled it in and did the other side in the exact same way then I just slid on a washer the wheel a washer and a couple of nuts to tighten at the end I was ready to add the petals to the front end but first I needed to trim off some of the extra axle I marked where these petals went and then just use a cut off wheel to cut off that extra piece I filed down that edge and then slid on the pedal I use some tack welds to hold this first one in place it doesn't really matter where it goes the important thing is lining up the second one so I got the second one lined up on the other side to make sure that they were parallel and then I tacked it in place as well then it was time to mount the seat that I wanted to be adjustable I knocked off some pieces of brackets from the bed frame and then cut down a piece of MDF the size of this MDF is just a little bit bigger than where the bolt B holes are on the bottom of the plastic seat that I had bought I drilled through the board to match with the holes in the bottom of the seat and then used a big bit to counter syn them on the underside I clamped this board to the frame and then held these little brackets up to it to figure where they needed to be cut off I used a cuto off wheel just to cut them to shape I also cut down a piece of Steel to put in between these two brackets to connect them I made sure that this piece was wide enough to span both of the brackets so that I could weld everything together but before that I marked and drilled a hole to add something to tight in the seat I used a tap to make some threads on the inside of this hole these threads matched up with the knob that I had got at the local Home Center I welded all three of the pieces of the bracket together and then grinded them down to smooth it out before attaching the rest of the seat I made sure that it slid along the frame and it wasn't too tight then I just pre-drilled some holes and held the two pieces together while attaching them with bolts and washers and nuts this was ready to mount the seat unfortunately there was no convenient way to do that I just had to stand the frame on its side and hold the seat in place while driving in the screws it wasn't hard it was just awkward and there it was a mostly complete frame back wheels front wheels pedals and the seat that's it for part one of this video be sure to come back next week for part two you can see it in action and see how I finish up the project and when that video is available it will be right here I've also got a bunch of other projects that you might be interested in so be sure to check those out and don't forget to subscribe that's it for this one thanks for watching I'll see you next week\n"