A test of ability in the world of bike building is being able to turn the banal into the beautiful. It?s hard to go wrong if you have a Ducati SportClassic up on the bench?and there?s a reason you don?t see many custom Honda Valkyrie Runes.
The streets of Japan are full of inoffensive and forgettable commuter bikes, and one of the most common is the Kawasaki BJ250. The little Kawa qualifies as a stern test for a builder, but after a session in the Taipei workshop of Max Ma, this one is almost unrecognizable.

If you?re in the States, you?ve probably never heard of the BJ250?but it was a huge seller for over 25 years in the East.
Launched in 1992, Kawasaki produced over 100,000 for the Asian markets. A handful also made their way to mainland Europe in the 1990s, where they were known as the ?Estrella? ( ?star? in Spanish).
Max normally works with heavy metal such as Harley Sportsters, but this jewel-like, vintage-style bobber shows that he?s a master of small-scale builds too.
He started by taking off the huge bench seat, binned the outsized fenders, and discarded the tank. The new tank, shaped in the classic peanut style, is entirely hand-made.

The Taiwanese inspection regulations are amongst the strictest in the world, and forbid frame modifications.
So Max has subtly trimmed the back of the frame to house a one-off shorty fender, and cleaned up all the tubing. It?s now coated it in a high-temp metallic paint that mimics the effect of metal but with a much smooth...