Topic: New sheet metal seat and tank.

[old750]

I designed a matching seat and tank a few months ago and thought I would never actually build it. I would come down and stare at my sheet of 18 ga steel, and my new nibbler tool, but took a while to actually start doing something. Now I look forward to doing this every day on the drive home from work! The fitting was fairly straight forward because they are just single pieces cut and bent round. Pretty simple but I think will look all right.

I'm pretty worried about cutting the frame now though. I'd like to take the rear light / fender brackets and connect them via round piece of tubing (like someone has done on this forum) and cut off the top seat bracket, leaving room for a neat finish for the seat.

[old750]

Here is the original design of the seat and tank.

[olds-cool]

Looks good so far.  Are you going to round it out smooth or leave the ridges?  I kinda like the ridges.

[Sam Green Racing]

Here is the original design of the seat and tank.

Lookin good Al, don't forget the filler cap.

Sam.

[old750]

I would like to try and keep the ridges as sharp as possible but nothing is perfect so they will be slightly rounded. Good call on the filler cap! Thinking of having a nice flush mounted pop-up type cap I see on the bikes on TV.

Another pic of the seat on the bike. Maybe too early but just to get an idea. You can see where the seat bracket intereferes and how the fender brackets will stick out. The seat wont fit right unless I cut all that off and join the fender brackets with bent tubing. Don't know if that's strong enough to replace the seat bracket on top.

[Gregorymoto]

Nice, are you using an air Nibble or electric.

G. Mountian

[754]

Greg, I picked up a Metabo electric a while back. It is the type that is chipless and has a 4 sided blade that goes up and down.

Man does that rip thru the metal uo to 16ga steel. Dont use it often but hope to do a bit of fabbing soon.

[troppo]

looking damned good mate
are you going to mig or tig it all together?

[Gregorymoto]

Hay 754, Nice i'll look into it, i have an old PROTO air, it Sucks.

[old750]

Nice, are you using an air Nibble or electric.

G. Mountian

I'm using a cheap $40 princess auto air nibbler / scissor to cut out the general shape and then follow through with hand shears. My dad's air compressor can't keep up with the nibbler on 18 ga steel so it's very slow but it works.

[old750]

looking damned good mate
are you going to mig or tig it all together?

I'm using a Lincoln MigPak flux core welder and it's very difficult. The last two pieces however had almost flawless welds. I would love to have a torch welder. I have used one before and I made beautiful welds the first time. Canadian Tire has a portable Lincoln torch kit but it's 400$. I will have to tack the tank and bring it to a welder to get it TIGed as I can't risk having crappy weld splatter all over the inside of the tank.

[Head]

I would be interested of pictures during progress, All I can say your is SWEET!!!!!!!
                                                        Head             

[754]

Greg If you bought a Metabo new, it would be more than some brand new headers for your bike!!
 I got mine at a glass shop auction for around a hundred bucks, but I think new starts with a 4..

It will cut .080 aluminum, and being chipless is nice.

Back to the tank, I am thinking 2 major pieces.. what is shown in the rendering plus the tunnel..so I think you could do a lot of the welding, clean upp the inside, then mount the tunnel or send that part out to weld the cheap easier part.