Decotoro

What a beautiful beast we made.

Sunrise ride with Dirty Goat Roadhouse.

We added hardwood floors to the upper and rear decks. In a herringbone  pattern. Because, of course we did.

Dekotora trucks have fairly lavish interiors. This is part of our take on that.

We are mostly working off a punch list these days. We’ve nearly finished lighting and audio, an amazing nose ring, and so many other details. It is nearly time to disassemble and load up Decotoro for the first event.

Here are some recent developments in pictures:
 

Our bull needs a nose ring.

As we close in on finishing our initial build of Decotoro, I have been too busy to post. We have been finishing fabrication, paint, building light boxes, and wiring the vehicle for light and sound. Until Saturday, at no time had any of us seen the vehicle with the head, horns, rear, and at least one complete side on at the same time. On Saturday we had an open house and did a complete assembly (to this point) in front of a small audience. As the day went on, we moved Decotoro out of the warehouse to play.

As day moved into night, we ran the horn flame effects.

We would like to thank all of those who came out to see our work over the last 13 months.

We are finishing painting all of the wood for the vehicle. Each piece requires two to four colors plus primer and multiple coats. It is a slow process but we have been working at most everyday it for a few weeks now. The end is in sight!

We are getting into the last pieces to be fabricated. Carpentry details have been added to the head.

And the bridge/tail is made.

Our lighting design includes a number of light boxes. Some of the pieces that were started a while back are now getting cut open to put light boxes in them.

Looking forward to seeing them fully lit.

We have fabricated all of the flyers. They are made in one inch round tube and covered in perforated metal. Fabrication involved many long, thin jigs, lots of cut wheel work, and a large amount of TIG welding.

The finished flyers are then carefully painted in chrome.

It had been a while since we started the vehicle. Due to some recent changes we needed to move some things around and redo our work space. Also a great opportunity to start the vehicle. So, wiring harness back in and on the first try she started right up!

We also got our first view of both horns out in longhorn position.