Every hot rod starts with a good chassis, be it a traditional Ford Model T track roadster, a Pro/Street fat-fendered Chevy, or something in between. In this book, the professional builders at SO-CAL bring more than sixty years of experience into play, and show how to build a chassis that will last and do the job.

Choppers don't have to cost thirty thousand dollars. In fact, a chopper built at home can be had for as little as five thousand dollars. The key is the use of a donor bike for most of the components. How to Build a Cheap Chopper documents the construction of four inexpensive choppers with complete start-to-finish photo sequences. Least expensive is the metric chopper, based on a 1970s vintage Japanese four-cylinder engine and transmission installed in a hardtail frame. Don't look for billet accessories or a fancy candy paint job on this one. Next up, price wise, are two bikes built using Buell/Sportster drivetrains. The fact is, a complete used Buell or Sportster can be had for five thou or less. Now you've got more than an engine you have wheels and tires, brakes, hardware, lights, harness, and some sheet metal. Bolt all that stuff to a simple hardtail frame to create an almost-instant chopper. Most lavish, but still cheap by comparison with many of the bikes built today, is a big twin chopper built from carefully chosen aftermarket parts. A RevTech engine and five-speed tranny set in a Rolling Thunder frame. Accessorize from the swap meet and add a simple one-color paint job to create a bike no one needs to be ashamed of.

This is the complete how-to book, showing both beginning and experienced artists how to airbrush, pinstripe, and goldleaf. Meant for automotive and motorcycle applications, the projects seen in this new book are done primarily with automotive paints because of their durability and super bright pigments.The projects themselves range from simple airbrush and pinstripe art, to more complex graphics and flame jobs that require the use of all three art forms.12 start-to-finish how-to sequences make up the bulk of this book. Each is documented from the first sketch to the multiple steps that lead to finished art. Nothing is left out, the photo record of each project is thorough and captures each part of the process. Captions are written by the artists, making each chapter more like a one-on-one teaching session than a simple how-to lesson.Each of these sequences is done by a well known artist, men and women like Leah Gall, Lenni Schwartz, Vince Goodeve, and East Coast Artie. And each artist takes time out from painting for a Q&A session. Learn why Leah Gall uses an Iwata airbrush, why Lenni Schwartz prefers a double-zero brush from Mack and which brand of gold leaf Keith Hanson prefers.Though there are other books that discuss pinstriping or airbrush art, there are very few books that cover all three means of embellishing and personalizing cars, trucks and motorcycles. With 144 pages and over 500 color photos, How-To: Airbrush, Pinstripe and Goldleaf belongs on the book shelf of any aspiring or established artist.

Sheet Metal Bible is a compendium of sheet metal fabrication projects, everything from simple shaping operations to multi-piece creations like fenders and motorcycle gas tanks. Each of these operations is photographed in detail, including the building of a buck when necessary. Meaty captions help the reader to understand what's really happening as a flat sheet of steel slowly morphs into the convex side of a gas tank. The book is filled with work by legendary fabricators like Ron Covell, Rob Roehl and Bruce Terry. Side bars scattered throughout the book include interviews that help explain how each of these master metal men learned his craft, which tools they prefer, and where to put the seams on a multi-piece fabrication project.