Professional Metal shaper from Southern New Jersey, USA

[King's Ransom]

Thanks David

[twiebe]

Hello Ransom
I checked out your web site. amazing stuff! how long have you been in business? It must take awhile to build a clientale that can afford your bikes. If you can build and sell five a year, thats an incredible business model.
Terry w

[King's Ransom]

Thanks Terry. I've making bikes since.. Hmm.. I started to build my first one (the Revelation) in Jan 2005. That was the first chassis, first Aluminum body, first stainless exhaust etc that I'd ever made. Previous to that, I had no experience working metal. Maybe some light fab stuff with mig.. So thats where it all began completely self-taught. I did the bodies on my first 6 bikes with nothing more than a home built E-wheel, some hammers and a bag, and cheap peice of junk planishing hammer. Haha, infact, I built 4 of those bike out of a shop that was only 500-600sq feet. haha Humble beginnings. Not having a big bank makes you a better craftsman.

As far as clientele, I havent always had the clientele that I have now. I sold my first build as soon as the first bike was finished. All of my bikes are contracted builds. I've been Blessed to be able to sell my ideas first, then build which seems to be a rarity in this business. When I first started building, my prices were 80-150k which is competitive with the "custom bike ind." But I started realizing that my bikes weren't really "customs" as much as the were concepts...Making it extremely hard to get USA mags to feature my work.. Especially because I use new technolgy 4 cylinder sport bike motors. This resulted in me having more exposure outside the states. Around 60 mag features to date in 5 yrs.. 90% coming from outside the States. So with increase in design and skill came an increase in demand, resulting in 1/4 mill starting price tags.. I never had to drop a dime for advertising. Its all been either mag features of word of mouth..

I spend a great deal of time designing and planning before I ever strike an arc. Tons of hours.. Then each tube joint meticulously fit. Machining/engineering is done to the half thousand...Each body panel and trasition is on the money resulting in minimal body filler (if any). I try to get my bodies to finish out with only a high-build primer.. Rather than pour on the filler and sculpt it like what seems to be the norm anymore..

Enough of my rant.. My thoughts got away from me.

[twiebe]

hello ransom
Do you have any pictures of your shop/ work space, tools etc? Any employees? How about family? I dont want to bombard you with to many questions; I would love to make a living doing something like that, but i have a large family (seven kids) and makin a living comes first.(im a welding contractor) but im not complaining, i have recently built my dream shop, and my boys love helping me on my old car projects. one more question, what about your bike names, are they bible characters?
thanks terry