The Chopper Compendium

I'm a little pleased with this past week. I thought Ild share so I can ask a few questions. As it sits I've 8* for the backbone, 45* in the neck, and the goose-neck is 30* off horizontal. Compared to the 1948 & CR140-2 frames, it's roughly 6" down and 0 out. I'll prolly bend the back-bone mid-way of the rear head. It depends on how the tank will sit.

The question I have regards the gooseneck and bracing. When I fit the tube to the neck, I'm gonna have to cut the tubes down the length of the gooseneck. I wasn't planning on using a gusset, but got to thinking that I could increase the strength of the goosneck by making a gusset to the bottom of the tube rather than the top. Essentially welding the tube to the gusset rather than each other. Any thoughts?

Nice start , Rudy. You have a substantial rake, and added strenght would be an asset. Clean and simple always looks good. A tube from the backbone to the downtubes just behind the neck.

Thanx Hans. The tube from the backbone to the curve of the gooseneck will be added. With the angle that the tube will be welded to the neck, it should be plenty strong.

This is what it's planned to look like.

looks good bud. not sure i understand your question so i will wait to see what is going on.

This is a situation I've never considered or seen any info on. I built the neck 1 5/8" between the bearings. When I cope the tube to fit the neck I'm going to be taking 7/16" off of the dia. That will extend all the way to the curve of the gooseneck. While 2 half-tubes should be stronger than a single down tube, it still worries me.

If I fit a gusset to the neck 1st, I could then fit the tube to that gusset. This would essentially put the gusset inside the tube and recover the strength lost by the heavy coping of the down tubes. An alternative would be to bend the gooseneck inward to increase the angle that the tube attaches to the neck. That would decrease the cope and make the downtubes more parallel when viewed from the front.

A 2nd alternative would be to make a neck with 2 3/8" dia.

If you cope the tubes to meet the neck at the outside you will have a much nicer looking neck junction. Don't worry about cutting away a huge portion of the two tubes to get them to meet. Once welded this will basically be a monolithic structure and a much cleaner junction than welding in some kind of big plate. You will still need some kind of small gussett to join the lower tubes to the backbone just behind the neck and this will just provide more weld area along the sides of the neck to tie it all together.

Thanx, Gary. That was the info I needed.

All so , I think you would have more weld area by copeing the two down tubes.....measure the total lenght of the weld, where the gusset attaches to the neck and then add up the total length of weld around the two tubes ( use the little copeing widget the make the templates and lay them out flat...measure the length of the curve ) then add the samll gusset that Gary mentioned and the total weld length of that ......and I think it would be greater that just the tubes welded to a larger gusset ! Hope this makes some sense..lol

On my goose neck, the down tubes touch at the neck.I coped them as one tube.the gusset I used connects the backbone, neck & down tubes.They're not real big, so its not an eye sore.Actually I used 2 gussets.Each gusset sits centeted on the down tubes......That is a cool frame.I like how low it is.You building a digger?

Thanx, YONA. I don't exactly understand completely. It does make sense to tie the tubes together and then gusset. I'll use 1 on top of the seam, prolly 3/8" plate.

Yeh, Jeff! The first draft looked like a digger before I knew what a digger was. Long and low was my goal. I've used dims from Gary's plans and by droping the neck, it's actually 0" out. I just bent the backbone and added the gooseneck. It's the 45* rake that gives it that long look. Just wait until I mock-up the front end. I'm looking for a wheelbase of 75" +/-.

That wasn't so bad. Tedious and time consuming, but it came out better than I thought.

Really like your Plans there Rudy, goose neck is nice....

Thanx, Max. I tend to stick my neck out.

Great Job. Nice.

Amazing what can be done with a little time and patience (and of course some know how and skill).
Looks good man.