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1947-1948 Big Twin Fender, I didn't have the heart to cut up an original so this re-pop came in handy. I’ve seen good and terrible reproduction of these fenders, this is one of the good ones, it’s a 3-piece with spot welded sides and correct width of the braces and rivet heads exactly like the original 47-48 so after a quick massage it’s pretty hard to even tell it’s a repro.
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I always wanted to bob the rear fender the classic way, you know have a pint and just ditch the hinge pin and forget about it, go listen to AC/DC or whatever but at the same time I always thought the fender is a bit too long even after the rear flip-up part is gone, so out came the angle grinder. In this pic almost 5" is cut off.
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This is an idea I’ve had for quite some time, and even thought I've never seen it I am pretty sure it's been done before. It turned out a bit more complicated than I first thought because the stereo in my garage doesn't have a repeat function and I get nervous if I listen to more than one song when I work so today I had to constantly run over and restart "Curse Of Love" by The Pogues until I was done. And once I cut it up everything came apart and both the top and side pieces had to be stretched to fit. Here’s how much I decided to re-use of the rear hinge bit ...ready to get welded back on.
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Done! Here's what the shortened fender looks like finished. To trick the eye and make it look stock I also put two extra rivets on top of the fender, so there are still four rivets on it.
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…So, after 6-7 hours of work and listening to "Curse Of Love" this fender is 4.1/2” shorter ...and no one will ever notice except me, so this was actually a pretty stupid idea after all.
Ok, right now Shane sings the last refrain so I got to run back over to the stereo.
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