Turned, Ground and Polished. It's a very high grade of CroMo. It's cold drawn steel, with an exact OD, completely true, and polished to remove any mill scale. Runs about $3.70@ft. For our frame, it looks like less than $100 of material, and I think I know someone who will bend it on their CNC bender for me
I'll just weld it to the stock neck so as to retain the VIN and title, and destroy the old frame hoops completely.
Planning to make only a couple of slight modifications to the stock frame, mostly to tie the engine hoops back to the backbone directly. Straighten and lower the backbone intersection to the neck. And increase the angle of the forward hoop, and spread the down tubes to a more perpendicular orientation as they run down and under the engine.wll certainly be adding bracing, but these small changes should improve rigidity without making the bike look non-stock.
I'll probably also see a decent weight reduction overall, greater strength, and more space. Win, win, win!