From bumper to bumper, everything is handmade, by me, in my owner/ operator machine shop. I started with the Dragon Artwork in the interior. Starting with the original custom headliner, then the doors, and fi nished with the mural on the floor. Both license plate brackets, toolboxes, gear shift, and the fl atbeds 5’ x 7’ DRAGON, were ‘water jetted’ from 1/8-inch steel plate. Then, ‘hard
grounding’ the plate to a high shine. This process brought the large DRAGON to LIFE. Free to roam the streets of Arizona.
My brother Roger, said the truck looked Great, that is, until I lifted the hood. The motor compartment was boring. No appeal, No personality, certainly not the Heart of a true Dragon. So, time to get to work and bring this Dragon’s heart to life. I started with the Dragon Head Air Cleaner, and Claws. After finding a block of commercial grade Styrofoam, I began to make the molds, for the Head
and Claws. For tooling to make the molds, I used a simple wood burning tool, along with a few ‘custom made’ versions, of a wood burning tool. I found a foundry in Salt Lake City who would try to cast the Styrofoam, into Aluminum, and it worked! In my shop, I made mounting brackets for both the head, and claws.
The truck was “done”, after years of adding one dragon after another, after…..
-David Meyers
Photos by
Rod Loveless