Castle forks

The problem in manufacturing these castle forks are the rear legs. These have an oval cross-section of about 25 x 40 mm near the triple plates underneath the headstock and are tapered down to about half these dimensions at the bottom end. The top stems are round at about 27mm diameter. To complicate things even more, they are double-walled in the region of highest bending stress, i.e. from the upper bridge casting to some 10" below the triple plates. And I consider this to be quite vital, especially if you fit an 8" brake into the front wheel!

I understand they were originally made from a long tapered tube, into which a shorter bit of taper tubing was inserted. Then the top of the tube was forged down to the 27mm diameter, the middle forged to the elliptical cross-section, and finally, the S-shape was formed in a die, using a big press or steam hammer. There have been far-eastern replications with rear legs machined from solid. These were, of course, very heavy! But there must be someone in this world who is making decent replicas for the Harley restorers. I was told somewhere in Macedonia.