3D-Printed Part Puts 1919 Harley-Davidson Back on the Road
Stunning 100-year old Harley is operational again, thanks to some help from a pair 3D printing experts.
When the sun is shining and you’re ready to ride, resolving any kind of mechanical issue can feel like it takes 50 years to get fixed. But according to our friends over at Ride Apart, the restoration of the 1919 Harley-Davidson in these pictures actually took a whopping five decades. Apparently, the Dutch man behind this project is as shy as he is patient, so there’s really no details on exactly why this — admittedly complicated — project took half a century. At this point, I sincerely hope he’s not too old to ride it!
What we do know is that the final piece he needed to fire the old V-twin, an ancient Bakelite distributor cap, was impossible to find. So after scouring the globe to and failing to locate a replacement, the unnamed gentlemen contacted Carl van de Rijzen from Visual First, and inquired about getting a replacement 3D printed. After using modeling software to virtually reconstruct the broken sections of the cap, de Rijzen contacted longtime collaborator Edwin Rappard of 4C Creative about getting it printed.
As you might expect, given that the piece in question was over a century old, it wasn’t terribly complex to render in the CAD software.
The tricky part actually came in selecting the material which would be used to render it in the 3D printer. After considering, and rejecting — thanks to potential conductivity — some of the standard material 4C Creative had on tap, ultimately high-strength, temperature resistant polycarbonate was chosen for the final product. And while a brass age bike expert might be able to spot the difference, the most important thing is that the key electrical bit functioned perfectly. So the bike isn’t just a sculpture anymore — it’s ready to ride!
Now, while I wish there was more detail on the overall restoration here, and I’d love to hear the little Hog run, the reproduction of that little plastic bit might be the coolest part of this bike’s return to the road.
Because as fun as it is to restore vintage machines, the further we get from the era when they were originally produced, the harder it is to find the pieces needed to make them whole again. So as 3D printing tech gets cheaper, the options for shade tree mechanics will open up a whole new world of options, and mean that we’ll get to see more vintage iron at our local meets. I don’t know about you, but that’s the kind of new-school tech I can get behind!
Photos: Artech 3D
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