Vintage
Ouch that’s gotta hurt.
To avoid any doubt this time around, Rich documented his three-month build of a 1942 Harley Flathead named Cheaters Proof, in an ultra-hip indie documentary called Free To Wander that in itself is a work of art. It’s proven him to be a talented young filmmaker, but most importantly it’s put to rest any doubt that Rich Phillips is indeed a talented bike builder.
Rich’s specialty is motorcycle seats, but he started customizing bikes after he parked his brand new Sportster behind his uncle’s vehicle, and his uncle accidentally backed over it. “It had been damaged and was no longer sacred, and that made me realize it’s just metal; it’s got two wheels, it goes down the road, and as long as the two wheels are in line and the motor’s connected to the rear wheel, you’re fine.” So he got to work re-building and customizing first that bike, then others.
By the time Rich got around to the Flathead shown here, he was confident in his abilities as a builder. The bike that would become Cheaters Proof came to Rich by way of a lawyer friend who had accepted the 67-year-old Harley, which came all the way from Australia, as payment for a debt. “He already owned quite a few Harleys and he said he wanted this one to go to a good home,” Rich explained. “I went out and looked at it, and we agreed on a price and I took it home. It was in rough shape, the wheels were all rusted, but it ran.” After rewiring it and putting in a new ignition system, the bike was ridden in the El Diablo run by a friend of Rich’s. “My friend rode the bike, in the shape it was in; on the whole run, and it made it the whole way,” he said. “We did have to keep pouring oil into it, because it was burning oil like crazy.” Rich suspects the bike had been rebuilt at some point in its past. “When I took the motor apart the movement between the pistons and the cylinders was probably an eighth-of-an-inch, so they weren’t tight at all,” he said. “But those motors will run through anything.” He rebuilt the stock 45 side-valve engine. “The bottom end was still in really good shape, so I didn’t do anything to it,” he said. “It’s been running great ever since.” Shifting the ancient Harley 3-speed transmission is by a jockey shifter.
After the El Diablo run, he got to work personalizing Cheaters Proof by stretching the frame 2” in the rear and lowering it by an inch-and-a-half. Rich had no misgivings about chopping the bike rather than restoring it. “I have no desire to restore anything,” he said. “If I wanna do something to a bike, I want to make it custom.” For example, unlike a stock WLA, he fabricated his own leaf-spring fork for Cheaters Proof.
For the gas tank, Rich split a Paughco tank down the middle to make it into two tanks, allowing the backbone to show through. “I really love that shape of this tank,” he said. “It wound up fitting really perfect. I ended up using some round rod on the top of the tank to fill in the gap. It kind of has a hot rod appeal to it.” For the oil tank, he used a piece of 4” round stainless tubing and capped off the bottom and top and rolled it on the stainless fittings. He added a 34mm round slide Mikuni carb, but kept the 3-speed stock tranny.
Another personal touch is the abundance of stainless steel found on Cheaters Proof. “I like stainless because it doesn’t need to be painted, and paint isn’t really permanent,” he said. “Stainless will last for a hundred years, and you can take it off and polish it, unlike chrome.” Rich laced up the stainless-spoked Sun Rims with a narrow glide hub for the 21” in the front and the stock drum laced to an 18” in the rear himself.
Rich did the paintjob and chose the blue and green because, “I wanted a kind of bright, tropical color on the tank,” he said. And naturally, Rich made the hand-tooled leather covered seat.
Will we be seeing any more Rich Phillips builds documented on camera in the near future? “I’m working on some animation that I may or may not use in my next film, but I’m not really sure,” he said. “I’m pretty slammed with work right now.”
Up Close: Rich Phillips, Biker Saddles
Rich Phillips of Rich Phillips Cycles, in St. Louis, Missouri, has been making leather bike seats and pans since he was a teenager. He specializes in handcrafted motorcycle seats, recovering your own pan or making a new one to your exact dimensions using 1/8 sheetmetal with longevity in mind. Covers include American tanned cowhide as well as exotic leathers. All hand-tooled seats are available in natural, tan, antique red, antique black, and other colors. Alligator leather seats also come in a variety of colors, and ostrich is available as well.
Rich has just introduced a new line of retro tattoo seats. The vintage designs include pirate ships, Japanese designs, and even a retro pinup girl surrounded by tattoos. The design is embedded into the vegetable tanned tooling leather. All images are put through a process of clear coating that leaves them water resistant, fade resistant, and abrasion resistant as well. Rich believes the secret to his success is in the quality of leather he uses, which produces what he considers to be the best tooling and image results.
For his seats, Rich uses closed cell neoprene, a foam made up of micro pockets of air to provide better cushioning and to provide a slim profile. “Open cell foam lets the rider bottom out,” Rich says on his website.
Actually, the selection of seat finishes, covers, and designs is kind of mind boggling to describe and you really need to pay a visit to his photo gallery and parts pages to get the full effect. So hop on over and check out all of Rich’s seats at www.bikersaddles.com, or give him a call at 314-392-7841.
Builder: Rich Phillips, Bike Saddles
Missourian Rich Phillip started out as an apprentice in his uncle’s upholstery shop at the tender age of 15, learning the mechanics of taking apart a seat and recovering it from ground zero. He later moved on to work at a car dealership where he was introduced to metal shaping and form. Armed with these new skills, he returned to upholstery and combined his expertise to create seats for his own motorcycles. Word got around about Rich’s seats, and his own business got underway when a local builder ordered hand-tooled Rich Phillips’ seats for every bike in his shop.
Now 32, Rich has moved on to building one-off custom bikes and offers several complete show bikes, choppers, bobbers, board trackers, and customized Harley Softails for sale in his shop, as well as motorcycle frames that come with Indian-style leaf-spring front ends and springer handlebars. But seats are still a priority with Rich, his specialty being medical-grade gel covered with veg-tanned leather and hand tooled with custom art work, “Like the one I did for the Biker Build-Off and Twisted Choppers,” he said. But there was a rumor that his first major build, Early Bird, was not his own and that inspired Rich to fall back on another of his skills, videography, to document portions of his Cheaters Proof build: Rich filmed, directed, and with his brother wrote and performed much of the music for the Indie documentary Free To Wander, which also features Keino Sasaki, Paul Cox, Paul Wideman, and others who celebrate the American chopper lifestyle. Free To Wander is being screened in several cities and is also available on DVD from www.choppertown.com, or check out a trailer at www.freetowander.net. For more info on Rich’s bikes, custom leather and new tattoo seats, check him out at www.bikersaddles.com.
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