Born-Free Invited Builder Series-Jason Sheets

Jason Sheets is one of our invited builders for Born-Free 5. HE's a soft spoken, talented guy from Hagerstown, Maryland. I started taking note of Jason's work on Instagram and it seemed like he encompassed all the things we look for in our new builders. We finally met when I went to York, PA to the No Dice show last year and I quizzed him on a few things and then popped the question!
We are happy to have Jason and can't wait to see his '31 Harley VL at the show. Enjoy this video by Magic Ken.
Please repost!

Born-Free 5 Invited Builder-Jason Sheets from Born-Free on Vimeo.

Jeff's BF5 build

I started building the bike with Franks motor in my head and I knew I had to use a frame that I had been thinking about for awhile. I wanted to build a single downtube frame with all stock dimensions and to look as if Harley made a single down tube Panhead frame. I talked to my good buddy Nick at Wargasser Speedshop about it. Nick offered to let me use his the frame table that he had been building. So I started driving up to Nicks shop every weekend. It was a ton of work and I couldn't have done it without Nicks help and excellent welding skills. I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.

With the frame done I got it up on wheels and started to flush out all my other ideas. I made some riser bottoms to accept Flanders tops. I have my tank mounted with a new tunnel. And part of my fender mounted. It's all moving in the right direction. Still lots to do.

BF 5 Builder Info/Welcome

The Builder Invite is a big draw for the show and a lot of fun but it's also lot of stress,pressure,financial strain and responsibility..Unfortunately we have lost two of our builders..Jasin Phares which is a huge bummer but totally understood and Bill Mize. The good news is we have two very capable guys with full builds underway to fill their shoes. Duane Ballard and his Kawasaki digger/drag bike and Mike Pilacznynski with his 64 Panhead(( Mike's Pan is part of the giveaway promo)). Two great guys that build some really neat bikes and embody the Born-Free spirit.We will have full build updates,bios and videos on these dudes soon.

 

  

Born-Free 5 Invited Builder Series Video-Scott "T-Bone" Jones

Next up we are proud to present to you the video on Scott "T-Bone" Jones of Noise Cycles in Santa Ana, California. Scott has worked hard to build up his shop/brand and has his own unique style on everything he builds. We hope you enjoy the video and look forward to seeing his finished bike June 29, 2013 at Born-Free 5!

Born-Free 5 Builder Update (Brittney's Race Bike)

It has been a whirlwind past couple of months.  Things have been going good in the shop and we managed to make some progress on brittneys bike.  In February we drove to Milwaukee and picked up her frame from Mike Lange,  he has been making race bike frames for a very long time.  He modeled brittneys frame off of a race bike that was raced in the twenties and thirties.  Here is a shot of it with the motor and front end installed up in our barn house.

 We ran into a small issue with front end length.  We had originally planned on running an excelsior fork, but it was three inches too long and would have messed up the lines of the bike.   So we bought a jawa front end.   I made some trusses for the front of it, to make it look a little older, kind of like a peashooter fork.

 Here is a solid works drawing of brittneys top tree.  My friend Andre made it from photos of an original peashooter top tree/ handlebar riser set up.  He is really talented.  It is getting carved out of 6061 aluminum this week.

Here is a shot of brittneys cases all polished up.   These are from 1923,  It is hard to believe they are 90 years old.

 

In this photo you can see the original narrowed flywheels in the truing stand.   They flexed too much when we were truing them, so we decided to modify a different set.

 

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I went to Florida for the AMCA meet at the beginning of march and hung out with my friend Doc Batsleer, who is an amazing guy who has been racing vintage bikes for years.  He is a wealth of knowledge and a great guy.   He sponsored Brittney's Racing leathers.  This suit was made in Germany and is top notch quality.

Here is the logo that brittney drew for her racing endeavors.  We have a lot of fun stuff planned for this bike and future race bikes, and are both very honored and happy to have the born free show on June 29th be a part of it.   Next month should be pretty exciting,  my friend Lock is flying in to make her gas tanks, and we should have the bike finished and ready for track time some time in May. 

Builder Spotlight The CZ'S

Scott Stopnik & The Cycle Zombies are building a early 60's Roth inspired full show Knucklehead for Born-Free 5. The Zombies are a Father( Big Scott)two sons (Turkey & Scotty) and a nephew Chase. Skaters,surfers,musicians,artists...these dudes can do it all.The guys all have their hands in this build and all have their rolls... from a early concept sketch from Chase to sourcing the rare parts by Scotty, the Turk's style and influences are all over the bike and the build is in the capable hands of Big Scott. This incredible bike is in our Builder Bike giveaway promo @ BF5 so if it's your taste and your number it's called...you will be riding it home!!  Loser Machine Co. came out and shot these photo's of the guys and did an interview too...Check it out on the Loser Machine blog.. http://www.losermachine.com/blogs/loser-machine

Jeff Leighton BF5 invite builder bike

At the end of last year i was honored by being asked by Mike and Grant to build another bike for their amazing show. I instantly knew the bike i was going to build. But the story of my build starts long before that. The year was 1965 in Baltimore Maryland and a 13 year old Frank Kaisler had already been bit by the Chopper bug. Frank had been saving all of his money from birthdays and odd jobs for awhile and while searching in the paper he found a Panhead project for sale. He called the guy and went to go look at it. In the guys garage sat a stock Wishbone frame with the motor and transmission sitting in it, being used to hold up half of his work bench. Frank fell in love right away, he gladly handed over $75 and left with the frame, motor, trans, springer, and 2 boxes of parts. He brought the basket case to a friends house in his red wagon, he couldnt store it at his house because his parents wouldnt have let him keep it. A few weeks later he rented a small garage a few blocks from home and started doing what he could to make it into a bike. Frank started helping out around an old timers shop in town learning everything he could while sweeping up the floors. Slowly the bike started taking shape

This is a very early version of the Frank's bike.

                                  

 

The bike didnt stay in one configuration for very long. It evolved as the years went by, basically every winter it was torn down and parts were added and changed. 

                                          

                               

Most of the changes that were made were all about making the bike better. Be it faster, more reliable, stop better. Frank was always trying to hop it up using the newest parts available. The bike was in countless magazines through out the years. Although the the over all look of the bike would change the one  thing that always stayed the same was the motor (the bottom end) and transmission 

About ten years ago Frank pulled the motor out of the chassis to put a hopped up cone shovel in it. He put his original motor in the closet and there it sat. In late 2006 I had the opportunity to meet Frank through my friend Wes White. It changed my life. We became friends while i built my first bike. A 1947 WL chopper with a triumph transmission. Over the last 6 years we have become great friends. Frank is one of the greatest people i have ever met. He has taught me so much, and helped me build every one of the bikes i have done. Last year while sitting around and talking, Frank turned to me and said he wanted me to build a bike out of his original motor. I didn't know what to say, i was totally taken back. I asked how he would like me to build it, he told me that it was my turn to take the motor and build a bike out of it and that i should build what i want to build. Im truly honored and pretty overwhelmed. I told him that i would want put Panheads back on the motor and build a bike in a similar style to the first configuration of his bike. That is what i have set out to do.Over the next few days im going to post a bunch more pics of how the bike is coming along. Stay tuned 

Jeff Leighton

Win This Tank & Fender This Saturday

This Saturday at the Born-Free/LoserMachine Party @ The Garage Company you can win this painted tank and fender set. Harpoon donated many hours of his time( still working on them) and all the materials for us to give it away at the event. You still can buy online until Friday 3/22 and at the event. Buy 2 BF Promo posters w/ tickets and you are entered. We will give this handsome pair away live on Saturday 3/23 about 6 pm. You do not need to be present to win this Set!! Your stubs will go back in the running for the bike promo at Born-Free...but please remember you must be present to win a bike @ BF5. Huge thanks to Harpoon ,Lowbrow,Loser Machine,The Garage Company and the other sponsors for helping with this event. These events are costly and take a lot of work and support to do them right and make them totally free to attend... so again Thank You to all involved.   

Jason Sheets BF5 Builder

Jason is one of our 32 Invited Builders & one of 18 participating builders in the giveaway promo...You Can Win This Bike!!  He is building a modified 30's Harely Davidson VL and it's really coming together nicely. Here is a sneak peek at his build. Jason's video should be ready soon and more updates to come...

Hippy Killer Hoedown 4/13/13

The 5th annual HKH is set for April 13 2013 and we are one of many that are sponsoring the event.We will have a BF Booth set up with Posters/Tickets &Merch. Come out and support this event. There will be a Dice party Friday night too!! Visit the HK Blog for all the details http://hippykillersgarage.blogspot.com/   

Invited Builder-Wink Eller

We are very pleased to bring you our FIRST Born-Free 5 Invited Builder video! We're running considerably behind on the videos, but we hope to start rolling all the new ones out from here on. This one is on a true legend of motorcycling, Wink Eller. If you don't know who he is, just google his name...he's set countless records for land speed racing, broke more bones than Evil Kinevil in one crash, but Wink is one of the most positive inspiring people out there! We are proud to have him involved in Born-Free 5 and in fact he's such an over achiever that he's already done with his scratch built 250 horsepower over-sized Schwinn bike! Please enjoy and please feel free to repost!

Giveaway Tank & Fender Progress

Hey Folks this Saturday March 23rd. We are having a Born-Free /Loser Machine Co. party at The Garage Company in Inglewood Ca.We also have several companies helping put this free event on and it's going to be a lot of fun...Harpoon is painting a Lowbrow Customs peanut tank & ribbed fender to give away at the event. This is how to win:: Buy 2 Born-Free promo posters/with free tickets by Friday the 22nd ( online ) or at the event in person. If you have already bought 2 or more at one time you are automatically entered to win. You do not need to be present to win the tank & fender. If you win we will ship to you. Win or not your ticket stubs will stay in the Giveaway promo to win one of the 18 particapating builder bikes at Born-Free 5. For the Bike Giveaway at Born-Free>> YOU MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN!!  Get you chance online right now @ http://www.lowbrowcustoms.com/p2800/buy/misc/born-free-5/born-free-show-born-free-5-poster-amp-ticket-/ or buy from the select stores that carry the posters/tickets:: TriCo in Holllwood, Classic Cycles in Orange, The Cycle Lodge in Orange or at The Garage Company in Inglewood. We want to thank everyone who is involved in helping us with the party and Harpoon & Low Brow for donating their parts,materials and time.

BF5 Builder Videos Coming Soon...

We had a lot of fun last year with the builder videos and we are working the builders for this year now . Here is Max's from last year...
MAX SCHAAF BORN FREE 4 from Mark Choiniere on Vimeo.

Vendor Special Ends Today

Hey folks the Vendor special of 200.00 ends today...then it's back to 250.00  We are starting to fill up earlier than in years past so if you want to vend you should get on it soon. We will sell out!

Show Class Bash

The Show Class Magazine People Choice Champ Party is on @ Cooks Corner.It's Friday June 28th.The People's Champ winner will be crowned and join the BF5 Builders at the show. Make ur plans now!

BF5 Builder Le Beef

This years Builder Invite is truly an international event and having Swedish builder Mattias (LeBeef) Andersson is an honor.Mattias has built some very cool bikes and some really neat quality parts over the years and has helped Sweden become a hot bed for old bikes and it's culture.Mattias'easy going nature and genuinely nice personality has made it a pleasure to have him involved in the show this year. Mattias also wrote this::

To start with I would like to say that I'm super honored to be part of Born-Free and being one of the invited builder together with all those talented builders.

The plan was to build my Born-Free bike in my shop in Sweden and have it shipped over to California for the show, had this idea of building "something" out of a Duoglide and of course when you looking for something specific you just won't find anything like that for sale…

There's lots of bikes/parts in Sweden but seems like people hold on to their stuff these days, and me being to stubborn to get rid of that idea and do something else! Also for shipping the bike in and out from different countries I needed something that could be identified as what it is. All the sudden Joe at Live Free Cycle Sales had a decent -60 Duoglide (Panhead) for sale so I changed the plan and decided to build it USA instead, Dan Collins at Old Gold Garage had already offered me to build the bike in his shop so I got the bike shipped over to his place and bought a flight ticket for myself.

Fabricated some parts for the bike in Sweden and shipped over there before I left, then I went to California for 12 days something. Had 10 days for working on the bike anyhow! Would loved to stay longer and put more time into the bike but its to hard to be away from my shop in sweden, seems like the bills keep on coming even if I'm not there..!

In those 10 days I managed to get most of the fabrication done so everything is ready to get painted and chromed. Then I'm going back later on and do the final assembling of the bike, still need to fabricate and chrome some parts but that I gonna get done in Sweden and ship over before I go there next time... Thank you~LeBeef.
 Our Builder Invite sponsor Loser Machine Co. sent a photographer out to see Lebeef a few weeks back when he was in LA and wrote up a nice story...Check out here http://www.losermachine.com/blogs/loser-machine/7447688-born-free-5-builder-mattias-lebeef-andersson