Art & Inspiration 1923 Ace

A metal sculpture I just finished up. About 1/4 scale I suppose. Tires 10-11" tall and wheelbase about 2 feet.

 

Nice

 

Inspired by the 1923 XP4 that Red Wolverton went 122 mph on.

 

your skills have improved since you left East Texas

 

Pure Awesome!

 

Haha, a lot of things in my life improved in the last 10 years Bruce, good to hear from you.

 

Wow! Any build pics? What materials is it made out of?

 

We definitely need build info. Tell us about the bellhousng and actually all of the engine parts

 

Nice! I like your style and finish. Who has the original that Doc Patt built/restored years ago? Bob

 

There was a guy in Coquitlam that had a real nice one. I got a couple pics somewhere.

 

Thanks guys. There have been several clone or tribute bikes built. I think Doc's has the original engine Red ran and it had some factory tweeks. He might have a few other original bits on his bike.
The engine is all hand built from tubing, washers and flat bar. The Bell housing was a gear reduction from a small Briggs. Part of the carb was from a stomp start briggs and I added an old brass grease cup for a float bowl. Other parts are tricycle, sewing machine, baby carriage, bicycle. I had the ACE emblems done locally and had to trust them to distress them because they only print on white vinyl and I didn't want to sand into white. Since the original bike had a Merkel front, I had to go to the museum in Sturgis to get a bunch of pictures and see how it went together. In hindsight I used to fat of tubing but it is an accurate functioning fork, although there are no springs in it and it's set at a static hight.
116 fin pieces and every one had to have the welds ground down, I think about 50 hours into welding on fins.. Here's a few pics of the build.

 

The back half of the tranny is from a fuel pump

 

Also I go to the dump for most of my tubing. Chairs, porch swings, cheesy throw away Mal-Wart shit. The pipe was a tapered table leg and the heat shield from the front of a Warm Morning heater, all from the city dump's metal pile.

 

Awesome! The more you show, the better it looks. If I remember you had a little daughter. Is she doing well?

 

Beautiful workmanship !

 

She's doing good, in college and will turn 21 in March. She turned out to be a kind, beautiful girl and an awesome human being.

 

Very nice. Gary

 

Good for you and good for her!!

 

Oh, and the ignition, the original Sims mag is clowishly huge. Red used a Bendix I think but even it just wasn't going to look right to scale so I made a smaller one. The back I cut from a thick piece of bakelight. You can't really see the coils but they are wire I took from a coil wound onto sewing machine bobbins. The spark plugs are for some kind of model, NGK CM-6 and you can still find them. Wires are old cotton shellac wire I pirated from a 40 Ford parts truck. The brass lever on the mag is for advance/retard

 

Absolutely love the bike...but the quote above is your very best work. Good job!

 

and he was a single dad raising the girl

 

wow, mine is turning 8 next week. It seems like yesterday I was holding her in the maternity ward. what a joy and a blessing they are.