Topic: lots of pics of my hammering a tank and shooting some paint

[fang]

I have sort of stalled out on my CB750 project.  I think that is is SO important to me that I am having a hard time doing the last little bits.... it is ironic because I have been trying to build this bike for about six years, and now that I have everything together I am struggling to assemble the engine and finish the last bits.

A few weeks ago (Saturday ,Sept 2nd) I got all inspired and decided to try something crazy -- to "hammer out" an idea that had been rattling around in my head for some time now.  I have an old CB750 gas tank that has been sitting on the shelve for years.  It is a bit rusty and dinged up, and it has a really horrible old rattle-can black paint job.  It always was WAY too ugly to do anything with it, but not quite ugly enough to throw away.

I have been considering buying one of those flashy customized tanks which recently have made a serendipitous flurry upon the market.  There have been some very nice “race-style,” all steel ones which have sold for $300 to $450.   But I have this old tank sitting around....  Normally I would have just pulled the dings, used a little Bondo, re-lined the inside and it would be as good as new.  But this time I decided to experiment with hammering some into a tank.  I have never done this before, but I am the kind of guy who will try anything once.


That was a few weeks ago, and now I have a rough, but really slick starting place for a seriously cool petrol tank.

Here are some pictures.  Like always, you can click for a larger/better view.



U-G-L-Y!  This is one ugly old tank.





I got out a few different hammers and laid them out on my work bench


Then I mounted the tank on the bike and with a white paint pen I roughly marked where the knee cutouts should be and where the clip-on handle bars need some extra clearance.

Then I took my yellow multi-purpose hammer and just started whacking the devil out of my tank. After a while I started to have a nicely defined knee cut out shape on each side of the tank.  It actually didn't look bad.  


Then I got the idea of using my pneumatic chisel to help me hammer.  I dug out my ever handy 16mm medium-deep socket (yeah I used it every day too...) and fit it on to the end of the chisel.  It gave a nice round, yet flat hammering surface, and the process immediately became more defined and about twice as fast.


After about two hours of the loudest racket you have ever heard this is what I had.


Another shot.


One more.  because these are kind of cruddy pictures, I think that it is difficult to see how cool this tank is starting to look.  The lines are well defined and it has a very unique shape from the hammering.  When these tanks are reshaped by cutting and welding the lines are very different, but because of my hammering technique the lines are unusually smooth and curved.  It truly has the promise of being very cool and particularly nice!  

At this point my neighbors started to complain about the incredible racket I was making and I had to stop.  I think I have about one more hour of work before I am finished.  Right now it is still all real rough, but it still is looking pretty good.  I am imagining that after I finish hammering the tank I will strip the paint, coat/rust proof the inside, and then try to do something cool and different with it.  I want to see if I can take silver solder and tin the recessed areas.  That stuff can be real pretty when it is polished up, and if I am real careful I think I can pull of a nice glassy surface.  I don't know – I've never tried that before, but if I can do it it will look very special.

So far I have about two or three hours invested into this project and no $$.  I imagine that the old tank maybe was worth about $15, eBay value.   I estimate another hour or two of hammering, and I have no idea how it will go from there.

Wish me luck, and I'll keep you posted as progress is made.

Peace and grease
-fang

[MRieck]

I'm sure it was loud! Is your hand still tingling too?

[ProTeal55]

Looks good.
I know a few members here on the boards have had good luck hammering knee inserts into their tank.

[fang]

Joe, your bike is looking pretty good.   Where did you get yout tank done? 

[ProTeal55]

Thanks bud for the praise..

I got the tank sprayed at Line-X of bartlett (about 20 min from O'hare airport)
They did the bed of my new F-150, and after seeing how well the stuff holds up to sun/water/weather/fuel/etc I thought it would be cool/different to do it on my tank.

I plan to do a Lucas headlight bucket I have as well to match...

[nickjtc]

Never having been around beaten metal before, a question. How does this kind of reshaping affect the structural integrity of the metal? Just curious.

[Jerry Rxman Griffin aka MuthaF'er]

Fang,

Are you sure you didn't start beating the crap out of your tank in frustration over what the machine shop did to the case of your 900?!    Keep us up to date on your tank. Another interesting project. Seems like you always have something going on. Update us on the progress of the 900 too.

Jerry 

[cbjunkie]

cool...

keep up the momentum!! (this will be the hardest part)

[Ratfink]

Bondo is your friend....check out my gallery. Just finished my tank project.

[cbjunkie]

that's TUFF! 

[Terry in Australia]

Bondo is your friend....check out my gallery. Just finished my tank project.

I take my hat off to you Ratty, anyone who can make a K7 look nice is a magician, even the factory couldn't do that! 

[gtyler5]

Fiberglass resin is superior to bondo in many ways. Ratfink that is one kick ass bike, also glad to see I am not the only skater' here!

[paulages]

i used fiberglass resin when i first began touching up my hammered tank. it was a real pain in the ass to sand, and i used one of the softer filler types (you can choose between several different filler materials to mix with the resin). if you get anywhere near where you want to be, i suggest using polyester glazing putty. resin takes forever to dry and be ready to sand, whereas glazing putty is ready in minutes and is really easy to sand. plus, the stuff sands to a porcelain-like finish.

i would love to see you tin the dents. i really want to nickel plate or chrome a tank, but want to do it to a stretched tank, which would require a perfect all-metal finish. WAY down the list of projects...   

by the way, the first picture is all resin-filler, before using the glazing putty. the bike on the right in the second picture is it finished (the other one was member BillDRamp's 750). it's coming back from the painter on monday, and i can post a better picture...

[ProTeal55]

As usual Paul , awesome bike !

[Ratfink]

Paul, wheres your gallery?!

[paulages]

thanks, joeTeal. wait til i get it back painted proper and finally upholster the seat...or maybe until i make that 550 a 720cc! or...#$%*, it's never ending, is it? 

ratfink (misfits reference?), i don't have one. i'll try to make one soon.

[bill440cars]

         Paul,
                  No doubt about it, that is one incredibly good looking bike and I've always thought that your gastank knee inserts look like they were done by a professional. Definitely would like to see more of it. I'm also anxiously waiting to see what can be done on building the 550 motor using 650, and whatever, parts. I've had thoughts along the same line but, yours are more refined. gain, great looking 550 and of course your 750's no slouch either.

                                                          Later on, Bill

[paulages]

that's not my 750...but this one is:

[bill440cars]

                          Good looking ride there Paul. Bet that exhaust is just a tad on the loud side, huh?

                                                          Later on, Bill

[ProTeal55]

That looks like my scoot when I bought it..
Good taste their Paul !

[fang]

It looks like you guys have done some fine work.

How about a few updated pics of my old project?  This is the same rough old tank from the first pics.  These pieces sat around for a few years, but then, all of a sudden, I needed a gas tank.  So I pulled them off the shelf and have been working on them off and on over the last few months.  I shot the paint, and I think I took these pictures early last week:


I had just painted the pieces the night before and wanted to roll them out into the late after-morning winter sunshine to take a better peek at my handiwork.  I painted the side covers, headlight bucket and the tank.  They are all a bit rough, but some wet 1000-1500-2000 will get them ready for a final shot of clear.   Shooting paint in the home workshop guarantee's quite a bit of dust/lint in the paint.  But like I said, all that will buff out, and combined with some hard work on the other bits, the finished product will be more show-stopping fantastic. <wink,wink>



That is an old leather seat cover I made ages ago.  I just recently removed and restitched the piping along the main seam, and still need to build up the foam and remount it.  You can see one of my daily drivers there in the background.  It is a '75 RD350 that I have been tinkering with.  The tank is off a 1960's Yamaha YCS-something.  I had to cut and stretch it to make it fit, and the whole bike supposedly will look an awful lot like a nice little 1960's 180cc scooter when I am done.  But I have a ton of engine work dumped into it, and it actually is quicker than a stock CB750.  Quite a bit quicker....   (Which is a funny thing to say, because if you look closely you will notice the motor is 1/2 out of the machine right now.)



A nice clear, cold day.   And, YES.  I chose the aftermarket bolt-on ABS side covers because (1) I did not want emblems, and (2) I have a lot of time and love dumped into making these things shiny.  When I am done, I don't want the covers to blow off, which has happened to me one or two times in the past!  No apologies -- I prefer the ABS bolt-on style!



One angle of the tank.  The clip on handlebars actually fit the cutouts; when up against the tank, their angle more or less matches the shape of the indentions.  If you squint, you can see I left one emblem mounting hole on each side and I have some nice old round emblems which I just hand repainted to match the tank.  All the radii of the curves actually match the radius of the emblem -- if you look carefully, all the major bends on each of the pieces share the same arcing curve; the same radius to their bends, and I am hoping that when the emblems are there it will help tie together that little bit of symmetry....



Another view of the tank.

All in all, it is coming together.  Nothing is perfect, but nothing looks too shabby either.  Imagine one of those 900cc motors stuffed in there and a nice, happy, shiny machine to go with it.  That's enough to put a real smile on my ugly mug. 

I will probably start a new thread in a few weeks when the progress comes together a little better.  I just thought I'd post a few pics to help keep me motivated.

Peace and grease.
-fang

[paulages]

looks great!

[754]

.............looks.......

.....FANGtastic........................................

[jtsmith]

Fang,

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see which way you decided to fill in, bondo, resin, or silver solder?

That tank looks freakin' awesome, and would love to know how you got such smooth lines.

Cheers,
JT

[grumpy]

That's COOL!

Where'd you get the ABS side covers??

[fang]

Where'd you get the ABS side covers??

They are standard issue Maier aftermarket units, and they are readily available almost anywhere.  I think I got these from JC.Whitney becasue their price was less than eBay.

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see which way you decided to fill in, bondo, resin, or silver solder?

I did all of the above.  Here is a quote from a forum post back in July 2009:

I spent most of today messing with my gas tank.  Stripped the paint and started with the silver solder. At first I was hoping to simply tin the knee cutouts, but that looked lousy.  So I ended up filling them with some thickness.  That means that I used a lot of lead-free silver solder (with an extra high silver content).  Below are some pics of my progress/attempts.  Up to this point I have only been working with the left knee cutout.


attempt #1a  



attempt #1b.  Here I am still getting used to laying the silver.  


attempt #2  I melted it all down again, and scrubbed off the slag with a wire brush.


attempt #3  Now I am starting to get a clean lay of the silver solder.  I still need to scrub it and melt it all smooth again.  At this point I was starting to feel like I was getting a feel for how I might need to do this.


attempt #4.  This is what I ended up with when I quit today.  This finish is the result of a good bit of sanding and some polishing.  Right now I am trying to decide if I even want to try to get it better.  I might go back and fill about a dozen of the holes, flaws and stuff.  the problem is that I am having a difficult time with heat management with my hand torches, and I am using several different ones, ranging from a butane "pencil torch" to a mapp gas blow torch.  I am pretty close to the effect I was shooting for, but I am not too sure if I like it.  I mean, I can imagine that I would like it....  The real question is would any one else?  I am shooting for the hand-formed, silver inlaid effect.  Now if I had the skills to engrave the cutouts in a classic, antique style, then that would be totally rad!


One more pic.

At this point I had almost $200 invested in silver, and I had not even begun the other side.  After some soul searching I decided that even if I pushed forward and made it all look great, it would end up costing me a lot of money that I did not have at the time.  Besides I was not too sure that I really liked it all that much.  Think Steampunk -- there is another thread about steampunk influenced bikes floating around somewhere....  

Soon after my experiments with the silver I started to bondo and solder fill the remaining dings. 

To be continued...
-fang

[fang]

I just now went through my pictures of the paint process and tossed a bundle of them in order to kind of tell the story of this tank in pictures.


I had a lot of nice CB750 gas tanks.  This was my crappiest one of the lot.  I always wanted to try to hammer in some knee cutouts.  Since this one was all dinged in and crappy, it seemed like the perfect candidate.


So I hammered the snot out of it.  To my surprise it didn't look completely horrible.  I tossed it onto a shelf and forgot about it for a few years.  Then one day (soon after I sold most of my old extra CB stuff, including all my nice gas tanks) I needed a gas tank for a project.  This was the only one I had, so I decided to see what could be done with it.


I tried to fill the knee indentations with silver, but that sort of failed.  So I slathered the thing down with bondo.


And then I sanded it all off and slathered all down again.

To be continued...

[fang]

Once it was more or less the right shape, I shot it with primer, and sanded it all off a few times, then finished with a nice sealer primer.


This is actually the second coat of the second color of my final paint job.  It is a dark metallic red for a base coat + clear coat paint job.  The previous evening I painted all the parts in silver, then on morning of this pic I laid the tape for what would become the silver pinstripes defining the lines of my paint job.  Then I painted everything in red -- If you look carefully you can see the pinstriping tape there under the red paint.


The paint only takes about 30 min to dry, and then I taped off  for the final color shoot.  I covered everything that was not supposed to be black with tape.


Here are the side covers.  Remember that there is tape already there under the red paint, so I just need to cover up to that.  The green tape might look like it is hastily or sloppily applied.  But that is because it was both sloppily and hastily applied.  Nevertheless, the edge of the paint will not be the edge of the green tape, rather the previously applied blue that that you can't see.  


Here is everything all laid out, just before I picked up the gun and shot the black paint.

to be continued...

[fang]

Black paint on side cover


Black paint on the tank.


I wish I took some pictures of me removing the tape, but I didn't.  I waited about 30 min for the paint to dry and I removed all the tape.  It looks reasonably good.  There were a few places where the solvents of the paint began to make the stretched/tensioned tape start to peal back a little.  This meant that I had a little over overspray here and there, but that was easily (carefully) cleaned up with a rag and some thinner.  I later went back a few times with a fine paint brush and touched things up a little more.


More fresh paint from a different angle.


Here is the tank with an emblem stuck on there with a little tape.


This is about a week later with some clear shot on the parts.  That is Issac my oldest of three.  He and his little brother just love this stuff; the third is still in the oven, but I think he/she/it likes this stuff too.  ...Either way, my amazing wife has let me know that all the paint fumes in the house probably are not very good for #3's developing brain cells.


This is a really bad picture of the hand painted emblems.  They now match the tank, and I think they turned out really good.


So that is that.  The first pic was taken about 4 years ago?  The last pic was shot a few days ago.  I still have a little more paint work to do before it is complete.  Then there is always more to do later.

Peace and grease,
-fang

[jtsmith]

Fang,

Thanks for the rundown. I think it looks great, and you did a fantastic job with the lines on the tank.

Cheers,
JT

[sangyo soichiro]

The tank dents and paint job are very nice, but the thing I really, really like is that seat!

[mystic_1]

The tank dents and paint job are very nice, but the thing I really, really like is that seat!

+1

Did you make and stitch the rising sun yourself?

mystic_1

[fang]

Yes I did.  I got the black leather from some high-dollar supplier.  It is really nice and thick.
The red leather for the patch came from some expensive woman's purse that I found at a thrift store.  They sometimes have the best quality stuff.....  =) 
Then I found a Rising Sun flag on the internet, printed it out, rubber cemented it to a rectangle of the red leather, cut it out following the pattern, glued it to the seat with rubber cement, then sewed it all up.  It was a fun project.

[fang]

Exciting time.  I am in the middle of shooting clear on the tank.  I have shot two out of four final coats.  I have a timer going, and seven minutes to piddle around until I head out and shoot the third.

It looks good and after this I will be done with paint work.  I will wait a few days, buff it all out using several stages of wet buffing, and then I will finally be done.

It is a beautiful day for shooting paint.  The weather is a fine, 59°F sunny, clear and no wind.  I have been waiting for a day like today for weeks.

peace and grease,
-fang