COVID-19 Fuel Tank

Monkeypants

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I wish!
Many days but only a couple of hours most days.
I quit whenever the concentration dries up. Evenings aren't a great time for concentration these days, they are best spent sweeping the shop floor.

Glen
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welds blended in. Many hours spent with a pneumatic die grinder and various grit ScotchBrite discs. They are slow but safe as far as doing damage by accidentally contacting areas outside the weld area . It happens! Also trimmed the bottom edge and happened to notice that the stock Norton tank curves up at the back. This looks nice but is also necessary to clear the top of the oil tank. It's always good to check out what the other guy did and maybe ask why.
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Monkeypants

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Next was to roll an edge for the tank bottom seam. Last time around I used a little homemade tool for this. It worked, but it took forever and did not make a perfect rolled edge.
This time I have a powered bead roller. It's based on the Northern tool hand operated bead roller, the type that clamps to a workbench. I found that pretty tough to operate with one hand while attempting to accurately feed the work through with the other. There is a foot operated pedal on the modified rig.
This unit worked really well to put the turn in at the bottom.
The Thruxton R tank has a visible seam at bottom, just like most tanks did back in the 60s.
I understand why they did that, but it looks a lot nicer if the seam disappears under the tank.
The bead roller established the roll and created the flange at about 50 degrees. I used the hand tool to finish the turn to 90degrees. Did not want to run through the bead roller twice and screw things up. It was easy to turn the existing flange from 50 to 90 by hand. This was done in a few minutes per side.
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Monkeypants

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Starting in to shape the bottom piece. Lots of hammering to get around the frame members.
And I made a mistake here.
One of the fellows on Metalmeet made an alloy Commando tank some years ago. He used 8 pieces on the bottom alone.
So I figured no way could it be done in one.
Wrong, it can be done in one, with a few snips in the right spots.
I should have left more material hanging down to allow for the turn.
This is not a critical error as the sandwiched on pieces were done on a bench weld under perfect conditions and welded from both sides.
But it would be better and faster done in one piece.
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Buttoning up the front edge. Woodworking tools work quite well on metal.
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Monkeypants

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Note the curve in the front edge in the photo above.
There's no logical reason for it, in fact the capacity would be about a teacup greater if I had left the front edge straight. It just looked better curved. Straight looked like a Harley Sportster tank. Those look good on a Harley Sportster, not here!
Also, I was going to leave the front edge as a smooth curve then happened to watch a YouTube video that convince me to put in dents to increase turning angle. The bike in the video was a Special with J.A.P. engine in a Featherbed frame. It had a great long tank and a turning circle of about 200'.
The poor rider looked pretty uncomfortable on there especially when he had to roll the thing back and forth multiple times just to inch around some garbage tins.
So the dents went in and the turning sweep is about 70degrees lock to lock.
In the photo below I've just trimmed the tank to match the seat front angle and seat height.
Again , wood working tools work on aluminium. I'm using an SCM 10' sliding panel saw that was our primary saw for cabinet making. I use this saw all the time for making strange cuts like this.
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roy the mechanic

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Coming along nicely. You don't appear to have any baffles. Fuel surge can be a real pain. I would reccomend making swirl pots for the tap(petcock) mountings. Something like,maybe, 2.5 inch diameter and1 inch deep,with an entry hole to clear the filter on the tap.
 
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