day eleven

i decided that sisnce i am going to be riding this bike i want to have a saddlebag on one side. i did some sketches the made a pattern. i traced the pattern to this sheet of .040 al, then i added 3/4in around the outside to allow for my radiused corners that i am going to do on this box.

here i am test fitting the side panel to the frame making sure i have proper clearance all the way around.
i just used a scrap of 1 1/8in tube as a dolly to hammer the edge over. having a tight radius bend in the dolly makes the corneres on the pattern bend nicely.
here it is all radiused. if you work your bends slowly as you more around the part you will end up with out wrinkled corners like you would if you were to hammer each area to its full arc before moving forward.

on the second side i desided to try starting out my bend with a flanging tool(aka cresent wrench) this helped allot to define the edgeand keep my flange height more consistant. i use this method all the time.
i am going to jazz this bag up a bit with a grid pattern of swedged holes like the ones i did on the plate mount. here i am laying out where they are going to end up. i center drilled them with a 1/8in pilot. i will wait untill the box is hammer and dollied after welding to swedge the holes. straightening the box with a bunch of swedged holes would make for a tricky job so i will treat the holes once the box is square.
cleaco your part down flat and scribe and cut  an even line around the edge so that your part has an even flange height. this will make the center strip easyer to cut and hopefully make your box have a better chance of ending up square.
tack all around the box before doing any final welds, if you can do any hammer and dolly work before sewing the box up.
when your done welding do any hammer and dolly work you need to to straighten out any warpage due to welding, then you can use a grinder and a body file to take the welds down.

here it is sitting on the bike, next up building the top for the box and choosing a latch.

day eight!!!

my friend jason hooked me up with this paughco mustang tank. the tank sat really high on the backbone and was at a really steep angle, so i decided to cut out the tunnel and drop the tank down a bit. i also opted to do a frisco style petcock that way i get the most mileage out of the fuel in the tank

in this pic the new tunnel is all welded in, you can see by the discolorization from the welder that i welded the tunnel in with 3/4 in welds. you want to weld with short cool welds and jump around all over the tank or you are going to wind up with a warped tank.

so here all the welds have been ground and i have the frisco style petcock bung welded in. when weldinging in the petcock bung i used sil-bronz rod so that it flows in the gaps better making for a better seal and lower heat to reduce the possability of melting the 1/4 npt threads in the bung. i machined some blind 5/16 x 18 bungs that i welded in the tunnel for mounting the tank to the back bone.

here is my good friend jeff hepworth drilling the holes in the backbone to mount the tank bungs. jeff whipped up som bungs by taking some 5/8 4130 tubing and welding on caps he cut out of 1/8 in strap with a 3/8 in hole drilled in the center these will get welded into the backbone and the fasteners will hide in the bung and retain the tank.

this is how it looks with the holes drilled and deburred.

jeff and i bolted the backbone bungs to the tank then dropped the tank on the bike. after making sure the tank is sitting on straight i placed a few sturdy tacks on the mounting bungs. remove the tanks making sure not to bump your parts out of alignment and weld it up solid

day six

on the chain stays you are going to want to make some solid slugs and rosete weld them in the joint where the chain stay hooks to the original lower frame rail.

here the new hard tail section is getting welded on, make sure to jump around allowing the heat to disapate so you reduce warpage of the frame.

in this shot i have the frame welded and am starting to think about where i want to put my tank and rear fender. i am actualy just going to use the stock front fender with a few modifications.

i am planning on ditching the tach, ignition switch, turnsignal indicators etc. so here is a mount i have come up with to locate the speedo. it is made out of .090 6061 aluminum sheet.

here it is cut out prior to bending it, i placed a slight bend in the mount to kick the speedo up so that it is easyer to read, maybe 30 degrees or so.

here it is mounted on the bars.