Max Metal Custom Motorcycles

By Christine Brubaker
The Toccoa Record
Every motorcycle that passes through the doors of G.T. Henry’s shop, MaxMetal Custom Motorcycles, leaves looking and working better. Henry is as much artist as he is engineer and mechanic and his attention to design is closely woven in to each cycle.

“When someone comes to get their bike after I’ve worked on it, I like it to look good,” said Henry. “I want their first impression to be ‘wow!’ or ‘that looks good,’ not just that it’s functional.”

Henry works on every aspect of motorcycles in his shop. He can build custom bikes, starting with nothing but parts and melding art and function again as he links them together.

His first ‘from scratch’ bike is sleek and stunning in a cold metallic blue and resembles the curves of a wasp. He has won four trophies for what has been simply dubbed ‘the bike.’

He worked on the bike off and on for about 15 months, tweaking the design as he went.

“I would sit and look at it for an hour at times and then my mind would wrap around it while I was sleeping and in the morning, I would just know what to do,” he said.

He said with a lot of bikes you see individual aspects when you look at them, like the paint or the chrome and you can tell what the builder focused on.

“I wanted my bike to be built such that when a person looked at it, no one thing would stop their eyes till the end of the bike,” said Henry.

He also does maintenance, service and repairs on metric, Harley, and custom motorcycles and he offers kit bikes and rolling chassis.

“I have two business objectives,” said Henry. “The first is to do what I enjoy. The second is for each customer to enjoy their motorcycle!”

Henry said a good portion of his work is outfitting bikes to make them more comfortable, for the driver and frequently, their riding partner.

“I put in backrests, foot pegs, change seats and so forth,” said Henry. “I also try to spice up the modifications to make it look good.”

MaxMetal has about 15 dealerships for aftermarket parts and accessories but Henry still relies on his industrial engineering skills to create unique parts that cant’ be purchase.

In 1988, Henry moved to Toccoa to work as a manufacturing engineer for Dempster. In 1996, he opened his own industrial welding and machine shop and then expanded into motorcycles in 2003.

Henry’s own enjoyment of motorcycles began at age 19 with a Bridgestone 50. It only ran at 35 mph when he purchased it and he modified the engine so it would keep up with traffic at 65mph.

“That thing was loud,” said Henry. “It sounded like a mad bee.”

Henry played with the bike all the time, constantly fiddling to get the perfect gear ratio, changing out sprockets and designing systems for it.

“I was in engineering school and I just applied the information I was receiving to bikes,” said Henry. “I like the mechanics of bikes and the visual aesthetics and you experience sounds and smells you don’t get while riding in a car with the air-conditioning on.”

His interest in machinery started much earlier, around age 10. He would work on repairing lawn mowers, and by age 13 was successfully repairing mowers, chains saws and tractors as well as some cars.

At age 12, his mother sent him to art classes, and while he didn’t continue in that field, he said since then, form is something he has always found pleasing. He also looks for form and enjoys seeing the details that other people miss. He takes a small camera with him on walks and enjoys recording the lines and colors seen throughout nature. The unusual aspects he uncovers stay with him and seep into his designs.

“I don’t need to copy other people’s work when I design,” he said. “My mind processes what I’ve seen and something comes.”

Since the first Bridgestone, motorcycles have always coincided with key events in his life. His first date with his wife, Diane was a motorcycle ride.

“The cycle broke down in the middle of a huge puddle but she married me anyway,” said Henry. “I have owned a variety of cycles off and on along the way but we got back into motorcycling in a more serious way in 1997 for our 25th wedding anniversary. My wife insisted and I knew I had married the right woman!”

Henry said his approach at MaxMetal is unique, and his abilities allow him to cater to just about any request from his customers.

“If it is a full custom job or adding comfort, I want my customers to enjoy the ride,” he said.

This article originally appeared in Lake Living Magazine, August 2006. Reproduced with permission.