I made the bike's frame at our Wizard Bros workshop in Baton Rouge, then shipped the frame and parts to my studio in Manhattan for finishing. Since I don't have a spray paint setup and booth here, I was pretty much limited to rattle-cans on the roof of our building for the paint job. Fortunately, by the time it was ready for painting, Krylon had introduced their X(treme)Metal line of transparent kandy paints and metallic basecoat. I used their Red, Blue, and Gold colors over the base, topped with Krylon Crystal Clear clearcoat. After the clearcoat was well cured, I polished the whole thing with fine abrasive plastic polishing wax, followed by Turtle automotive wax.
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I wanted the bike's paint scheme to also reflect the mid- '60s style I was going for, so it has a "Peter Max" feel to the graphics. The tank panels were given a coat of spray-can pearlescent finish over the metallic basecoat, because of the star pattern. Although the stars look white in the photos, due to the flash, from other angles they appear silver with a pearly sheen. The stars are masked with various sizes of die-cut vinyl stars I bought off the rack at a Staples store. No way I was going to hand-cut however many star shapes there are in this job. The flame pattern, however was hand-cut from vinyl airbrush frisket film. I made both positive and negative friskets to do the job.
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Due to my studio's usually being  short of usable floor space, I did most of the work on the bike down the hall at my friend
Carlos' facility, late at night. As Carlos probably has the world's most complicated audio system, I was usually working in dead silence. However, in such a situation my brain makes up for the lack by supplying "memory music", At many times it was stuff from Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, for some unfathomable reason. But the night I was laying out the flame pattern, the internal sound track switched to Glen Frey's "The Heat Is On". I usually get bike names from dreams, but nothing had come to me that way this time, so I just took that song as my cue for the name, as it seemed appropriate. Since the song's full title is a bit cumbersome, I just shortened it to fit. Jim Wilson
The bike's "old-school" theme is carried through in the low-rise "ape-hanger" bars, which were salvaged from a kiddy bike found in the trash. The handlebar clamp is surmounted by a classic Stewart-Warner bike speedometer with added polished aluminum visor bezel. Due to the length needed, a special speedo drive cable was adapted from a shortened auto speedo cable. The cable is surrounded by a high-temp plated split loom made for auto under-hood use.This split loom was also used to shield the horn/headlight cables. A pair of pushbutton switches were faired onto the brake lever's handlebar clamp. One switch is for the horn, the other is for the rear amber visibility flasher, which also pulses the headlight. Normal auto light flashers don't work with LEDs, so a small "strobe" flasher circuit for RC flying model aircraft is used to flash the LED units.
The Heat is my approach to designing an "old school-style" Street Rod bicycle. The CroMoly frame,  similar to that under my Kandiru's composite bodywork, has been shortened by a foot, for urban use, and sports a curved mid-tube as a reference to the classic bike frames of the pre-war era. The area between the top and mid-tubes is fitted with a set of tank panels, as a tribute to the "tanker" bikes of the same period. The bike's electronic circuitry is enclosed in a recess  in each panel back.  My favorite street rod cars were all based on prewar automobiles, updated with modern mechanicals and kustom styling, so that was my goal with this machine's image.
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This is the second set of tank panels made for this bike. The first set finished had an actual 1-quart fuel reservoir inside one of them. Since I'd later decided that it was impractical to fit an engine into this frame, and the original tank panels were fairly heavy, due to the functional tank aspect, I made a new set of much lighter weight, from 1/2" foamcor board and shaped foam, covered in stretched spandex over fiberglass, saturated in epoxy resin.
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As performance was an important consideration for the bike, I tried to keep it as light as was practical. The thinwall CrMo tube frame itself weighs about 7 pounds, the composite fender and tank panels add up to about 4 pounds. The
bicycledesigner.com steel triple-tree unsprung fork is the heaviest component on the bike, followed by the driver's saddle, a large antique-style "hairpin" unit by hiwheel.com. The passenger saddle is a typical '60s banana saddle with a reshaped and welded nose.It was re-upholstered in 1/2" hi-density foam covered in black cabretta leather. The driver saddle's heavy formed cowhide shell is also covered in thin foam and the same leather, as was the foam padding of the sissy bars. Both saddles are very comfortable. The passenger's location has folding foot-pegs for resting her feet.
The Heat is my approach to designing an "old school-style" Street Rod bicycle. The CroMoly frame,  similar to that under my Kandiru's composite bodywork, has been shortened by a foot, for urban use, and sports a curved mid-tube as a reference to the classic bike frames of the pre-war era. The area between the top and mid-tubes is fitted with a set of tank panels, as a tribute to the "tanker" bikes of the same period. The bike's electronic circuitry is enclosed in a recess  in each panel back.  My favorite street rod cars were all based on prewar automobiles, updated with modern mechanicals and kustom styling, so that was my goal with this machine's image.
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This is the second set of tank panels made for this bike. The first set finished had an actual 1-quart fuel reservoir inside one of them. Since I'd later decided that it was impractical to fit an engine into this frame, and the original tank panels were fairly heavy, due to the functional tank aspect, I made a new set of much lighter weight, from 1/2" foamcor board and shaped foam, covered in stretched spandex over fiberglass, saturated in epoxy resin.
.
As performance was an important consideration for the bike, I tried to keep it as light as was practical. The thinwall CrMo tube frame itself weighs about 7 pounds, the composite fender and tank panels add up to about 4 pounds. The
bicycledesigner.com steel triple-tree unsprung fork is the heaviest component on the bike, followed by the driver's saddle, a large antique-style "hairpin" unit by hiwheel.com. The passenger saddle is a typical '60s banana saddle with a reshaped and welded nose.It was re-upholstered in 1/2" hi-density foam covered in black cabretta leather. The driver saddle's heavy formed cowhide shell is also covered in thin foam and the same leather, as was the foam padding of the sissy bars. Both saddles are very comfortable. The passenger's location has folding foot-pegs for resting her feet.
The fork is fitted with a fabricated aluminum plate for mounting the Dave Gibson LED headlight and a chrome motorcycle horn with added bell and bullet center. As the bike is intended for urban night cruising, lighting was considered very important. The headlight has six Luxeon Star white LEDs.
Also for safety purposes, a hi-intensity JC Whitney accessory LED brakelight strip is worked into the underside of
the rear fender. This is actuated by a microswitch added to the front brake lever, and faired in with epoxy putty. A formed aluminum lever is press-fitted into the cable slot of the brake lever to press the switch arm when the brake is applied. It may be removed for cable replacement. Lighting is powered by a hi-capacity 12V NiMh battery pack, which is recharged by plugging a "smart charger", needed for this battery type, into a jack in its housing. The pack will power the bike's efficient LED lighting for several hours at night.
Above: Battery state is monitored by a   voltmeter built into the switch console.
Above: "Smart charger" plugs into a jack in formed-aluminum battery housing.
Far Right: '59 Caddy bullet tail lenses cover LED lamp-replacement units in red and amber. Amber is visibility flasher.
The bike's "old-school" theme is carried through in the low-rise "ape-hanger" bars, which were salvaged from a kiddy bike found in the trash. The handlebar clamp is surmounted by a classic Stewart-Warner bike speedometer with added polished aluminum visor bezel. Due to the length needed, a special speedo drive cable was adapted from a shortened auto speedo cable. The cable is surrounded by a high-temp plated split loom made for auto under-hood use.This split loom was also used to shield the horn/headlight cables. A pair of pushbutton switches were faired onto the brake lever's handlebar clamp. One switch is for the horn, the other is for the rear amber visibility flasher, which also pulses the headlight. Normal auto light flashers don't work with LEDs, so a small "strobe" flasher circuit for RC flying model aircraft is used to flash the LED units.
An alloy dual-leg centerstand is fitted. For optimum height, it is equipped with in-line skate wheels with larger bearings. A side benefit is that it is an aid in moving the bike around indoors when it's not being ridden.  By raising the rear wheel from the floor, it gives, in effect, a much shorter wheelbase, making the 7-foot bike much more maneuverable.
The bike's chain guard is fabricated from 1" U-channel polished aluminum. The sprocket housing is made of foamcor, spandex, fiberglass/epoxy. The form is evocative of a mid-'60s Paxton centrifugal supercharger, not an accident. The chainring is by GT, given multiple coats of kandy red over concentric groove pattern, giving a star ruby effect.
The rear hub is a Shimano Nexus 7-speed, controlled by a twist-grip shifter on the right bar end. Spokes are stainless, in Sun alloy 26 X 2.125" rims.  The sharpened blade plates have no function except cleaning up the look of the dropouts and adding flair. They are painted in a kandy red/gold fade, then clear-coated for protection.
I made the bike's frame at our Wizard Bros workshop in Baton Rouge, then shipped the frame and parts to my studio in Manhattan for finishing. Since I don't have a spray paint setup and booth here, I was pretty much limited to rattle-cans on the roof of our building for the paint job. Fortunately, by the time it was ready for painting, Krylon had introduced their X(treme)Metal line of transparent kandy paints and metallic basecoat. I used their Red, Blue, and Gold colors over the base, topped with Krylon Crystal Clear clearcoat. After the clearcoat was well cured, I polished the whole thing with fine abrasive plastic polishing wax, followed by Turtle automotive wax.
.
I wanted the bike's paint scheme to also reflect the mid- '60s style I was going for, so it has a "Peter Max" feel to the graphics. The tank panels were given a coat of spray-can pearlescent finish over the metallic basecoat, because of the star pattern. Although the stars look white in the photos, due to the flash, from other angles they appear silver with a pearly sheen. The stars are masked with various sizes of die-cut vinyl stars I bought off the rack at a Staples store. No way I was going to hand-cut however many star shapes there are in this job. The flame pattern, however was hand-cut from vinyl airbrush frisket film. I made both positive and negative friskets to do the job.
.
Due to my studio's usually being  short of usable floor space, I did most of the work on the bike down the hall at my friend
Carlos' facility, late at night. As Carlos probably has the world's most complicated audio system, I was usually working in dead silence. However, in such a situation my brain makes up for the lack by supplying "memory music", At many times it was stuff from Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, for some unfathomable reason. But the night I was laying out the flame pattern, the internal sound track switched to Glen Frey's "The Heat Is On". I usually get bike names from dreams, but nothing had come to me that way this time, so I just took that song as my cue for the name, as it seemed appropriate. Since the song's full title is a bit cumbersome, I just shortened it to fit. Jim Wilson
Much use was made of steel-filled epoxy putty in The Heat's construction. In this image, it was used to make the pad which prevents the forward spring clamp nut of the saddle from ever accidentally banging into the top tube. It was also used to make the cable guides which route the shifter cable along the top tube.
Shown here is a "bridge" which connects the driver's seat tube to the rear fender, and acts as the forward mount for the pillion saddle. It also incorporates the forward seat tube clamp. The welded piece was then faired with more steel-filled epoxy putty, which is much stronger and more tenacious than Bondo, which many people use for this purpose.
Long experience has shown that triple-tree fork legs will always damage a tank located behind them, unless there is a stop in place to prevent it from happening. This one was machined from 6061 aluminum. It is fixed to the frame by two 1/4-20 threaded steel hex standoffs welded to the frame, then faired with epoxy putty. The screws are stainless.
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