seatpan and rear cowl for motorcycle

[anders nørgaard]

Originally Posted by worntorn

I think an Easy edger is in the cards here at some point. Either that or work some more on my tipping wheels for the Bead roller, so far the results aren't great with those. Tough to get a uniform lip with a curved object when using the bead roller, even with the fence in place. Probably need a curved fence.

Looks nice and tidy Glen!

If you use a ball-/roller-/needle bearing for a fence in your bead roller, it is easier to get around tipping the curved flanges The contact point beween fence and panel is in line with the bead roller shafts and you can rotate the panel left and right as you want to

[worntorn]

that makes perfect sense Anders, this is the same way I run curves thru my wood shaper. In that case I make up a pattern, screw the pattern to the blank then steer the whole thing thru the machine with the pattern running against the bearing. The cutter head is under the bearing so it is cutting the shape into the blank.
In the case of the Shaper, a power feed is used to make the whole operation safe and to produce perfect cuts.

So thanks for this idea Anders. I would never have thought about using the bearing on the bead roller, even though I do the almost the same thing so often in woodworking!

Glen

[jlrussell4]

I used a short piece of aluminum about 3/4" wide and 1/2" thick with a slot cut 1/4" into the end.

Nice and smooth looking for a hand tipping tool. Good job

[GARAGEMSANTOS]

Neat job Glen i also very much like the design!

[worntorn]

Thanks Santos.

I struggled with the design of this little piece for quite awhile. The cowl pieces first got used on race bikes back in the 40s and 50s, most famously on the Norton Manx. The streamlining effect was thought to add a few MPH. The cafe racers of the 60s borrowed a lot from the Manx race bikes so the tailpiece or cowl was often found on those hotrodded bikes.

Today there are all sorts of manufactured cowls available, but all are sized for making cafe racers from narrow tired bikes of the 50s thru 70s. I tried a couple of different one on there and they just didn't work with the wide back tire.

So it had to be much wider at back then narrow down to follow the frame tubes already in place and meet up with the planned tank shape.

. I found an NOS 03 Triumph Daytona seat on Ebay at the right price and with the right shape. The shape of the cowl was fairly easy to see once the seat was found. Considering it is from a sportbike, its a comfortable seat. Triumph seems to find a way to make their
sportbikes comfortable and fast, the Japanese ones are just fast!

Glen

[worntorn]

I polished it up this afternoon. The look of the finish after a wash in the Ewheel is really perfect, some shine, not too much. This full on polish is more than I would ideally go for.

Once there are welds involved, then grinding and sanding happens and the wheeled finish is gone in those areas. In order to finish off the sanded area it was either polish the whole thing or paint it and I am not a good painter.

If the entire bike gets polished like this I may need some sort of an escort Vehicle travelling in front to warn oncoming motorists

[jlrussell4]

That sure looks good Glen.

[ShawnMarsh]

Very nice, I like this thread a lot as it shows the piece from beginning to end. Thanks for posting the progress!

[Michael Moore]

Glen, that came out very nice. Congratulations!

cheers,
Michael

[worntorn]

Thanks all.
I would love to start in on the tank but there are bills to pay, so back to paying work for awhile.
From searching this site I have learned that 5052 isnt the material of choice for motorcycle fuel tanks.
I read that Evan Wilcox uses 1100 series @.080 thickness for tanks. Someone else mentioned using. 080 for the sides and. 125 for the bottom.

Ron Fournier uses. 063 3003 h14 (annealed) everywhere on his tanks.

The problem is that the local metalmart and metal supermarket sell only 5052. They will bring the others in at 1 sheet minimum per order. So if I use two different thicknesses then two sheets will need to be purchased, about $350 worth or so.
I probably only need about $30 of material to do the job, the rest will be left over.

The cowl was done in. 050 5052 and with some annealing it wasnt bad to work.
In. 063 it would be tougher to do and in. 080 shaping would become really difficult.

I dont think that. 050 is thick enoug for the tank, though in 5052 it might be strong enoug.
The problem is when the. 050 gets faired up around welds etc., then it might only be. 025 thick in that spot.
Im interested to hear what others think about the metal choice for a mc tank.

Thanks
Glen