Jake's amazing CB400 is a testament to modern digital techniques.
Jake had his bike 3D-scanned and designed most of the modifications digitally. Then when all the parts arrived, virtually everything fit as it was supposed to.
I only had a small part in this bike, machining the adaptors for the carb pod filters, and making the stainless steel front fender mounts.
The struts started with a piece of hose taped to the tyre to provide a constant "spacer". TIG welding wire was then used to mock up the shape of the struts.
A quick heat-and-bend around a piece of heavy pipe and the basic shape of the strut was done.
A piece of flat bar was docked off and welded to the strut. Once it was blended into the strut and polished the weld was invisible. A simple hole in the flat bar allowed the strut to be bolted to the existing fender mounts on the fork lowers.
While you might think it cheating, I simply used 2-part epoxy and glued the strut to the plastic fender. Firstly, the bike is so clean that any mounting holes in the fender would have (in my opinion) been a travesty. Secondly, the fender weighs mere grams and the epoxy only needs to withstand the aerodynamic loads trying to tear it off. Since we're city slickers around here, its unlikely this bike will be making any 200km/h jaunts any time soon.
I have to say I was shattered when Jake powdercoated my beautifully polished stainless steel struts ? ?
Photos for the fender mount construction are below, plus I shot some video of this work if you want to follow my thought process.
Jake's bike was featured in Return of the Cafe Racers, plus he has lots of his own build log on his personal website.
If you're keen to learn the skills to build your own custom bike, get on my email list, and click the links I send to let me know what you want to hear about.
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