Took a skinny minute to document what was going on with the Indian Front Fender Bracket project.
Above are a couple of shots of the first generation bracket that I cobbled together from an existing part that used to be attached to a side car fender. This particular component was not stock; evidently it had been "created" from scrap flat bar about 60 odd years ago by a former owner as some type or repair or replacement for what was supposed to be there. For me to get them to fit, I had to expand their width by 5/8ths of an inch to match the recipient fender. Not sure of the history or source for the basic material; could almost have come from a blacksmith shop or foundry as there used to be a few of them around here in my Grand-dad's time, none remain. I think this because it is miserable stuff to work with and lacks the smooth machine produced finish that is typical of mass generated stock.
Plan B. After a lot of frustrating tweaks and twists to the first version of the bracket, I finally elected to go clean slate and bend them from scratch. As it turned out, I had enough of the strap material left over from the first try that I was able to bend and shape another pair of brackets, as seen in the shots above. At this point they are still rough shaped and will still have to be tweaked into their final shape which has to conform closely to that of the fender so as not to deform the fender's curves and metal.
The front strap, clamped into position as seen from above, and how it all looks on the inside. As you can see the bracket is only held in place by a trio of C-clamps. Where it presently sits may not be its final resting place so I am holding off laying down any tacks by way of making it more secure until later. This fender has one additional issue attached to it in that, at one point in its past, it lost the first 3-5 inches of its leading edge. The raw edge left over from the amputation was nasty enough that i had to cut away more material just to get the symmetry of the curves and edges back. Right now I am on the lookout for an donor fender that I can harvest that section from. I suppose that if I had an english wheel or a panel roller that I could cobble something up but it is simpler to work with existing curves wherever possible.
The green masking tape is there to protect the fender from scratching the paint on the main legs of the front end. It is fairly certain that the red color you see is the original color that the component came with. There is only a sort of grey primer underneath it and no sign that there has ever been a respray or that the metal was ever stripped down to bare. Top side is a whole nother matter as it had to be taken down to bare metal in order to deal with a few dings and extra holes. If I can match the color, which is probably a very old Dupont Enamel code, I might consider doing the whole bike in ti but i like the shade of red that it currently wears and am in no big hurry to ad to my work load by doing a total strip and repaint. As it is, the plan for underneath is to leave it as is for the most part, just feather the edges and throw a shot of flat clear at it to preserve the patina.
"Oh what fun, it is to beat, on a nasty piece of junk.....................Eh?"
CopperNick
en.wikipedia.org
