Cutting Down the Front Fender – Now with Bacon! (Slicer)

It took me a while to decide what I wanted to do with the front fender. The original fender was chrome, but it was in pretty rough shape. I did know 2 things for sure: I wanted a smaller-than-stock fender, and I wanted a front plate (pedestrian / bacon slicer) on it. For a while I was planning on ordering a fiberglass fender, but I decided that it would be more fun to modify the original fender to suit my needs.

I decided to leave the front edge of the fender stock and chop off a few inches from the rear. I made a template using the curvature of the front edge as a guide, and traced the line onto the rear of the fender. I then fitted my Dremel with a cutting disc and got to work. The cutting went pretty smoothly, although I did spend a bit of time getting the curves on each edge to match.

I’m still trying to decide if I want to apply any finishing touches to the chopped edge. The original fender is rolled around the edges, so there is a discontinuity on the edge that I cut off. I’ve come up with 3 possibilities:

Leave it as-is
Bend some round bar to match the rolled edge and weld it to the fender
Cut the rolled edge off the front of the fender to match the back edge

After chopping the fender, I moved on the front plate. I had picked up a nice vintage front plate off eBay a few months ago that I intended on mounting on the Bonneville, but I decided that it would look better on this bike. The front plate was secured by 2 bolts, so mounting was pretty straightforward.

Overall, I’m happy with how the front end is shaping up. It’ll look even better once I get the fork boots on there!