"How do you keep the wood from soaking up all your fuel?" the bewildered gawker asked. He stood jaw agape, eyes locked on Rustic's gas tank, which looked like forged cherrywood.
Rustic was a chopper built by Grant Goble at his shop, Ironrock Choppers, in Pine, Colorado. He'd ridden the big eyecatcher to a buddy's party, and it wasn't the first time he'd been asked that. He smiled and patiently explained that the secret was in the paint. But more about the finish later.
There's more to Rustic than its curious pigment; it's a chopper rooted in its home state's identity. If there's a place where you can be a fully civilized wuss all the time, it isn't Colorado. Sure, Denver's a big city, and Aspen gets more than its share of rich folks, but Colorado is also a cornerstone of Old West history, and with that lineage comes a sense of individuality and independence in its residents, much like that sought by many chopper owners.
Goble understands this perfectly. As a bike builder, he strives to make each of his creations as unique as the folks who ride them. Take Rustic here: you can't take so much as a side glance at it without thinking, "Damn, that's unique."
For Goble, this bike is a statement about pride - more precisely, pride in his home state. He incorporated a lot of elements that he feels exhibit the rustic nature of his native Colorado. He made special barbed wire that he strung along the chromed fender accents and down the center of the gas tank. Peterbilt diamond plate "flaps" were created and welded at the oil bag, and he had the seat upholstered with a saddlesque look in mind. These are among some of the more noticeable pieces he made, or had made, just for this project.
But the paint was what drew us in. Or, more accurately, the lack thereof. Rustic isn't painted, it's sort of powdercoated. If you looked at this bike and didn't know any better, you might think the sheet metal was made of cherrywood, but obviously that's not the case. As you'd expect, he fabbed it all from metal but yearned for a log cabin feel to it. Goble took his dilemma to Terry and Janie Blehm at Foothills Powdercoating, and they came up with a great solution. Rather than try to airbrush paint a wood grain into the metal, why not color it in such a way as to make it look like stained wood? Terry has a good deal of experience as a powdercoater, and he knew that by using a coating with a different chemical composition from conventional powder he might be able to give Grant exactly what he wanted.
Think of the new process as powder staining. With conventional powdercoat, the colored parts are baked in an oven after coating in order to bond with the parts in question. The coat the Blehms used was applied in the exact same way, but a chemical reaction takes place during baking that makes the coating change color and brings out any irregularities in the metal surface. As the parts sit in the oven, the coating runs downward; that's what creates the wood grain effect. You can see for yourself how well the process worked. Goble liked it so much that he and Terry have used it on several more bikes since Rustic was completed.
The final result of all Goble's hard work was a one-off chopper with its own unconventional profile, and that's cool with Grant: "As long as I am kicking, Ironrock Choppers will only build one-of-a-kind hellrides." And if there's one way to describe his work, it's definitely "unique."