1919 Henderson

[T. Cotten]

-My 'in-house' effort turned out HX Schebler friction washers, Eric,.

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But never on the first try.

....Cotten

[exeric]

I like the radius tool you made, Tom. The thumb screw adjustment is very useful for setting the cutting tool.

[exeric]

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Enjoyed helping a friend with his 1919Z yesterday. You don't get to see many early Hens side by side. My phone camera usually takes a good picture but I'm not happy with this one. Seems very pixilated.

[exeric]

It has been a while since I have done any up-dates on 1919 Henderson progress. I have been busy on it, but much of that has been minutia, and nonsense that would be of no interest to anyone but me. A big nagging issue has been the starter assembly which was inadequate from it's inception and has haunted many Hendersons. I have a genuine assembly collected over years swap meet hunting, but it never worked reliably, and always needed to be carefully nit-picked or re-made. I chose to re-make all of the close tolerance parts and attempt to get a Harley-Davidson reliable starter. In the picture, I made everything but the springs, and the actual starter arm which is genuine. The starter jaws were a challenge but more of a drudge because it was mostly angular adjustments to a dividing head. A dividing head (as pictured) is one of the most useful tools in a machine shop. Remarkable what you can make with a dividing head. I'll up-date this when I get the starter assembly sorted out and installed.

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[exeric]

I have been working on the '19 Hen, albeit, lazily, and with enjoyment as the motivator. The following pictures are in group form, and not any logical sequence of time. Again, I do this for personal enjoyment and work on what I want, when I want so I don't see rapid progress but when I get motivated on a singular project I hit it pretty hard. The most pressing chore for me was getting the new paint correctly matched to the paint of 20 years ago. I got a close match from PPG and made a few modifications to get it as close as I could torture my eyeballs to discriminate. I had this paint computer matched two time before and PPG got the closest. This table of parts were critical to getting the bike together. The green parts were blatantly off color and had to be matched to the over-all color. This final painting process was by far the worst part of building this bike.

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[exeric]

The electrical system was a long term project of hunting, and fabrication. Electrical components for pre-1920 Hendersons, and Harley-Davidsons are very rare, particularly generators and battery boxes. My 1919 Henderson had no electrical parts when I got it but the frame and rear fender were drilled and tapped for a horn, and taillight and that challenged me to search for the missing electrics. The generator was made by General Electric and is as rare as a part can get. I don't believe it was used on anything but a Henderson so that made it even more challenging. Oddly enough, I knew of one on an 1918 Henderson motor in Orlando that was withing 5 miles of my house. There's a long story that goes with it so I'll spare you that. The owner was deceased, but I was able to contact his widow who was willing to sell it. Up front, I will tell you that I paid dearly for the entire motor w/generator and both of us were happy with that deal and I have a clear conscience that I paid the market price. I have deep contempt for vultures that steal rare objects from the estate of a deceased collector and even brag about it. I've heard too many stories from dirt-bags that are proud of their theft from a grieving widow.

Getting these parts painted, assembled, and installed in the frame were critical to moving forward.

The battery and switch box.

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The General Electric generator.

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I had to make the switch keys for the Remy switches. Michael Breeding was making beautiful reproductions of the keys this style of key for H-D, Henderson, and Excelsior but I assume the demand was minimal, to say the least.

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[exeric]

I had to make the battery boxes from a generously loaned original. I made 6 (I think) and kept 2 for myself. A lot of work.

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[duffeycycles]

Great Posts & nice work Eric !