Panhead Urn Provides Eternal Ride

TORRINGTON, CT – Steve Serafini of Fab-U-This got a text on Wednesday from Eric Landi inquiring if he could solve a problem. Landi wanted to know if Serafini could quickly fabricate a base for an urn to hold the cremated remains of his brother, Harley-Davidson lover Bryan Landi of Torrington, who passed away five months ago? A service was finally being planned and it would be a rush job.

“Somebody had made the base for it and it wasn’t nearly big enough. They were going to fill it up but it was so small that the ashes wouldn’t fit in it,” he said. “I made the base for it. It was a Panhead cylinder because he was a fan of the Panhead.”

The job got done with time to spare and the Panhead urn was delivered today, but Serafini said that he wishes that he had more time to customize the urn ever further, adding “maybe a valve cover and exhaust pipes to it.”

Serafini was glad to do the job. “I knew Bryan for years. He always had cool bikes,” he said.

While working, though, it dawned on him that there might be a market for urns made from old motorcycle cylinders.

“I have a funny feeling this could be a stupid market – people want something different like that,” Serafini said, who added “I have fun getting to build the things that I get to build. Doing something with that much meaning makes you feel really good about what you do.”

That doesn’t mean that he’s going to turn cylinder urns into a sideline business, although he could use singles for small folks, V-twin for couples, and triples and four-cylinder engines for, ahem, the heavier among us.

– By Bud Wilkinson