The craze for building motorcycles during the last few years isn’t limited to the mechanical abilities of adults. High school shop teachers want their students to gain more experience than the traditional oil changes on teacher’s cars and getting the kids more involved in other aspects of hands-on mechanics. Building motorcycles is one of those areas that has taken the front seat in some schools across North America.
Kerry Murch is one such teacher. Murch, who has since retired from teaching as of June this year, was the head of the Georgian Bay Secondary School’s Tech Department and taught Manufacturing. Murch spearheaded a project at the Meaford, ON, school that oversaw the completion of a custom Softail style motorcycle built by his students. The project began about three years ago, although the first two years were spent pounding the pavement looking for donations through local service clubs and anyone else who would listen. “Nobody was really interested in a bunch of kids building a motorcycle and nothing really happened in the first year. Then, one of the guys that was in the Rotary Club, Graham Comly, who had been involved with the school for many years, was terminally ill with cancer and he generously left $15,000 to the project. After that, money started to come in slowly from personal donations”, Murch said. “Then the Rotary Club decided to get involved, and a total of $23,000 was raised.”
Murch approached Fox Harley-Davidson in Owen Sound to see if they could contribute in any way. The dealership was eager to help and offered parts at cost to the school as well as mentoring the students. It was decided that the school would buy a ‘kit bike’ from Custom Chrome. “We bought the ‘Eldorado’ model. It was the last kit bike they sold. In fact, we had paid for it just before they closed the kit bike programme down and they weren’t going to ship it to us”. Murch continued, “After some discussion with Custom Chrome, they shipped us the bike but it was just a mess of parts they threw together”.
Over the course of the year, the bike saw about 160-200 kids have some hands-on time in the build although Murch said there were about 20 core students who played a major part in the build. The students came from Murch’s Manufacturing Class and teacher Jack Watson let many of his students from his Automotive Class also participate.
The project saw various local businesses help out and train the students in their particular trade. Dan Metzger, one of the technicians at Fox H-D would make regular appearances at the school to help out with the mock-up and answer any questions. Blue Mountain Collision in Clarksburg offered to teach the students how to do the skim coat and smoothing of the filler, and then prep the bike for painting. Vince Goodeve from Goodeve Studios in Owen Sound taught the kids how to mask off their design and prep for airbrushing. Goodeve donated the detail work and showed them the finer points of pinstriping.
Having this many kids involved would pose some challenges, like wondering where bolts and small parts were left, but what a cool learning curve for that many kids. At the start it would be like Christmas with teenagers eagerly unpacking boxes that contained pieces to a puzzle like a brand new engine or transmission, or unwrapping a custom frame. By the end of this project, the students gained some real world experiences like manufacturing, mechanical, body-work, painting and prepping techniques, airbrushing and pinstriping as well as taking on the challenge of wiring the complete bike. They would also learn to work together as a team.
A handful of students, along with Murch, worked all day and evening on the last day of classes, they finished the bike and had it running at 11:25 p.m.
Mr. Comly’s generous gift of the $15,000 seed money also came with one stipulation, the school has to sell or raffle off the bike and any money from the sale then goes back into the fund for another shop project. If you are interested in buying a custom bike, as of press time, it is for sale at Fox Harley-Davidson, they can be reached at (519) 371-6666 or look them up at www.foxharleydavidson.com. Remember with your purchase of this bike you will be helping another group of students gain valuable knowledge of many trades they may not otherwise be exposed to.
