fender fab

Hi i am a part time blacksmith, (when the wife and work let me) and i am trying to make a home made fender for my friend. The problem i have is that i need some type of scaled drawing so that i can make a template to cut out of metal. I have searched the web for these but they just dont exist or i cant find them. I am looking for a fender with a 8.5 or 9 (front) and a 10.5 or 11 (rear). i want to be able to make a template and then do some creative cutting and forging. I have tried to just buy one from the local shop but they have a store credit only on returns. kinda defets the purpose. if anyone can help me out with a web site or with a drawing i can enlarge i would really appreciate it.

Basically the process that i am going to use, this should clear up some confusion is.
1. use a scaled (or exact) drawing of a fender as a template.
2. use that template to cut the sheet metal so that i have the exact size.
3. form the fender so that i have the shape and curve
4. cut and hammer the hell out of it to make it an original.
thanks for the help, if you can think of any books or sites with the info please post it.
forgeblast

[Dutch Comstock]

forgeblast, Hi, the first thing you should do is some searches of different catagories of what you want to make and also go through a lot of the galleries which will give pictorals of work in progress.
From what I am understanding you are wanting to make a Jessie James type of fender. These are a very simple concept as they are a contiuous roll keeping the same radius.
We do most of our work cold and try to build to a pattern and a buck of some kind. For what you are wanting to do you can make a wire form buck out of 1/4 inch hot roll rod. Figure out the radius you want on the width of the tire and make a bunch of rods with this radius. Then figure the distance off of the tire you want and roll a rod to the radius of that and the length of the fender and cut it in pieces the distance you think the stations should be and start welding in the middle of the first radius you made and you will have a skelaton shape of your planned fender. You will have to add more curved backbone rods to tie everything together and give you side information. You can then build a light angle iron frame to hold the buck off of your work bench to where you can access all areas of the buck
You now have to start shping your panel to fit the buck. We try to do half of the work by stretching the center into a sandbag and the other half by shrinking the outsides of the panel. We also keep planishing the panel after stretching and shrinking to smooth it out and see how far we have come and also to keep the panel from getting to bound up with all of the smallimperfections done by the roughing work.
We use the english wheel and air hammers to do our planish work for us.There are also other fancier equipment to do some of the shaping and finishing work ut it all can be done on an english wheel and sandbag Dutch

Dutch I want to really thank you for your help. I see now where i was getting hung up in the design process. Thank you once again i cant wait to start i will post pictures when i have them made.
Dutch (or anyone else) what gauge metal do you use to make your fenders, i heard some people say they used 18 cr and some have told me that they have also used aluminum. Any one have a prefrence out there. I could be mistaken but can you prime and paint aluminum? or is it a special process with acid baths and electric current (i cant remember the name).
later
forgeblast

[fordguyfordman]

Hi Forge,
The name of the process is anodizing. It imparts colour into aluminum with the use of dyes.
I work with aluminum a fair amount and my own thoughts about the use of it for a fender is don't. If you plan on riding it a fair amount the aluminum is a softer metal than c.r.s. It will tend to show dents from rocks released from the tires. Your better choice is the cold rolled steel if you intend to ride,again it's my own personnal opinion ultimately the choice is yours.
Tom

Thanks Tom,
anodizing was the word i was looking for. Thank you, I think i am going to take your advice, and just stick with the crs. I have a couple of sources for it and love to work in it anyway. Thanks for your time,
forgeblast