Dig the sleek, striking look of the ThomasNet.com chopper and other “American Chopper” creations? A designer from Orange County Choppers, the shop featured on the popular TV show, reveals how he puts his design concepts into overdrive:

Jason Pohl, lead parts designer at OCC, accelerates the design process by utilizing a user-friendly CAD (computer-aided design) program that lets him turn his rough ideas into 3D models–with no prior CAD software training. In fact, the software from SolidWorks has proven so effective that Pohl now feels like he’s sculpting his concepts instead of just drawing them.

“I’m an artist, not an engineer or a programmer,” remarks Pohl to Modern Applications News. “I usually just throw lines on paper to knock out a good concept for the part I am working on.” Now that he can render his ideas in 3D with the CAD program, he is able to modify, refine and test them before they are machined.

The software “brings our ideas to life, so we have a good idea of what they’ll look like and how they’ll perform. It gives us cross-sectional views, exploded parts views, and light shading. The parts look like real chrome,” Pohl says. What’s more, the program “lets me prove things out, so I can see how a new wheel design would look at 70 miles per hour, and then test the wheel’s structural integrity.”

In other words, it gives him a full-throttle approach to designing everything from custom exhaust pipes to wheels. This strategy certainly works in a shop that’s gained renown for its eye-popping choppers (for example, one featured motorcycle had wheels with spokes shaped like tribal knife blades) as well as ear-popping arguments between the shop’s owner, Paul Teutul, Sr. and chief fabricator, Paul Teutul, Jr.

On the Discovery Channel show, “American Chopper,” viewers are treated to the intricacies and challenges of chopper fabrication, as well as the theatrics between the demanding Paul Sr. and his laidback son, Paul Jr. Usually unveiled at the end of the show is the custom chopper that results from their hard work and rounds of head-butting–almost always a stunning creation with a strongly rendered theme.

“Choppers and software. It’s not a combination that immediately jumps to mind,” comments Paul Teutul, Sr. “But Jason makes it work, and the results are the new part designs that give our choppers an edge.”

Source:

Designing With CAD, Artist Sculpts Choppers
Modern Applications News, May 2005
www.manufacturingcenter.com/man/articles/0505/0505designing.asp