Motorcycle parts

Reno, NV 89506

I shot the tank with a black base coat, followed by several coats of orange holographic flake, followed by several coats of catalyzed clear. This got wet sanded with 600 and I had “Real Ralph” do the art work on it. Once the brushwork was on I shot it with 3 more coats of clear. This is right after the last clear coat, before any color sanding or polishing.

This was my first attempt at shooting flake, it’s not perfect by any measure but I’m happy with the result and I learned a lot. Plus it was a lot of fun!

I cut away just enough of the rib to make room for the weld-in base for one of our Speedster gas caps. I did this so the cap would fit as close to the surface of the tank as possible for marking.

 I used some blue Dykem and a scribe to lay out the cut line for the weld-in base. I like to cut away the bulk of the material, leaving about 1/4" of excess. Then I make a final cut right on the scribe line. The cap should just fit into the hole, slightly snugly. No gaps. If it won’t slide in I use a small stone wheel on a die grinder to slowly open it up. 

After putting the curl into both tank halves I tacked them together.

And set the tank back on the bike to see how the proportions are looking. Muuuuuuuch better!

After welding it up and filing it straight and smooth I was pretty happy with the results. Of course there is the little matter of getting gas into the tank. Let’s take care of that next.

I cut out the original filler neck and welded in a patch. I have a different idea for the filler.

OK, quick…before anyone sees this thing, let’s put it on a diet. We pulled the tank and stripped off the paint. I laid out some cut lines to remove the blubber.

I used a cut off disc in an air tool to cut this up. It does a pretty good job. Getting the “Kreem” sealer off this inside was a real pain. It was gooey, stickey – yuk!

But if you walk around here – lordy, lordy… What were they thinking with that tail light by the way?

Making an ugly tank...not so The Ugly Bike Cometh Didja ever get the crazy idea to buy a bike you don’t really need? To start a new project when you’ve already got three or four already cooking? I’m probably the only one that ends up in these situations. It was a nice spring day, and I’d spotted a bargain Ironhead Sportster on CraigsList. Damn computers. I went over and looked at it with my buddy Brian. We got it started (MAN it was hard to start, I had a whopper bruise on the inside of my leg that night!) I rode it around, convinced myself it would be “a quickie project” and forked over the money. What was I thinking? The Ugly Tank I like bikes smallish, parts smallish, everything in proportion. So I had a small issue with the tank on this bike. It was too wide. The center was flat…well, not quite flat. The previous owner had just rattle canned the tank, so the factory weld seam was pretty obvious. What to do, what to do? It’s not so bad from this view

Just for comparison, here is the completed tank with the chunk we removed. It makes a huge difference in the tank and the overall look of the bike!

Finally, everything is welded, ground and ready for primer and block sanding. (the cap is just sitting on the tank, it’s not bolted on)

I used a bead roller with a set of “rounding over dies” (also called “tank dies”) to put a small curl in the edge of the tank. I’m going to use this to make a peak in the assembled tank.

Crime Scene Choppers

 This was followed by 3 coats of a PPG epoxy surfacer. Man, this stuff was great, easy sanding and great build. It took very little work to have the tank ready for paint. 

 The tank was sprayed with PPG DP-90 (black epoxy primer).