Make a chopper without welding?

[Badfish]

Does anyone have suggestions on how to make a chopper without doing any welding? I have never done a build before but see real cheap bikes on CL all the time. However most are WaMart type cheapo bikes. No problem, I'd rather try with one of those in case I screw it up.

Anyway, these cheap bikes often have straight round tubes on the front forks. Can anyone suggest a way to make a chopper out of one of these without welding?

I had one idea which was to cut 2 pieces of steel or aluminum, in about the size and shape of your average 12 inch ruler--an extension. Insert one end into the open end of the forks, have 2 equally spaced holes in the extensions and the forks, then put 2 bolts through the fork tube, through the extension and then out the other side and secure with a hex nut.

This drawing sort of shows what I was thinking. The tube is white, the extension is light blue and the bolts are gray. The notch in the light blue part is the fork end. Obviously the other fork would be the same.

Would this be too flimsy? Would the sheet of metal used to cut the extensions out be too tough for a saw? Thanks!

Better yet, have any great examples on how else to do this?

 

[udallcustombikes]

Old School way of making extended forks- take two similar pairs of forks (oval leg tubes, not round). Cut the crown off of one pair and jam the legs over the drop outs on the other pair. Use some JB Weld between the legs for a little more security.

Here are a couple I did that way before I got my welder.

 

[user 135]

I made an extended fork on my first Build Off bike. Find two forks and slip one over the other. I bolted mine then finished with some epoxy putty.

 

[CrazyFork]

Take and cut tube dropouts leaving 5-6 inches of fork tube and find metal pole at clothing store. Put dropouts in end of metal pole cut to length. Take second set of forks and cut off so they will lit in other end and boom no weld sturdy forks