More nails

Continued work on the rear fender mount tonight. Started by cutting the slots in the plate.

Then I used the plate to hold the bungs square while I tacked them in place.

I was experimenting with the flow rate of argon as I seem to be rinsing it at the moment, hence the oxidation!

Wasn't too happy with my welding, seem to be struggling with it at the mo, so bought myself a TIG welding DVD for Xmas! Anyways I cleaned them up a bit, am not too worried as you won't be able to see them when the brackets on.

The daily nail

The cheeky hour and a half in the shed is the best. Not a lot of progress but another nail and all that!

Drilled out the holes in the cross rail to 14mm, but my lugs are 15mm! So a little lathe action was applied to get them to fit nice and snug.

Was going to weld them in but I got distracted figuring out my adjustable bracket, which I mocked up out of cardboard of course!

Rear fender

Spent a long afternoon in the shed, but didn't feel like I got much done tbh!

The cross rail that supports the seat is just tacked in place on the TC bros hard tail, so I cut it off and tacked it in the correct position.

Then I spent a long time thinking about how I'm going to mount the rear mudguard. Some tea was drunk and several coats of thinking applied. Decided to mount the bottom of it first so cleaned off the tab that was originally on the mudguard.

I'm going to fit some bungs into the lower frame rail that I can mount a bracket off that fits to the fender. So I turned up some 15mm bungs and tapped through 8mm. I then marked the hole locations on the frame and cut the cross bar out (as it was also tacked in). I'll probably put it back in the same location, but it will be a lot easier to drill off the bike.

Really don't feel like I got much done for the amount if time I spent in there, but so much of it is just looking and figuring shit out!

Tank lugs

Got the rear tank mounts welded on tonight. I mocked it all up on the frame and added a 0.5mm washer between the seat bracket and the tank lugs to give a bit of space for the bolt to tighten up without clamping the seat and stopping it from moving (hopefully!).

Some of my welding was good, some not so good so I'll give it a clean up and a once over if it looks like it needs it.

Little by little

Got a cheeky hour in the shed tonight, one of those nights where I was a bit frustrated cos I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, but a bit further none the less.

I cleaned up my welding on the rear end of the tank in preparation for the lugs being welded on, but flapper work revealed some porosity so I went through a few cycles of re-welding and cleaning it up.

Still not perfect but then my dad turned up and told me to stop trying to get it spot on as I'd end up grinding half the tank away.

I decided that was sound advice so I left it there and will get the lugs welded on next time I'm in the shed.

Seat/tank mount

Good afternoon in the shed. Finished off making the frame mount for the seat and tank.

I then spent ages trying to line the seat up square to make sure the mount would be fixed on straight, before tacking it place.

With that on I could finally go back to mounting the tank. I fabbed up a couple of tabs to fit the back of the tank.

Obviously i started with a cardboard mock up to get the shape right!

They are just resting in place for now, I spent a bit more time touching up the seams on the tank. I need to clean it up before I can weld the tabs on.

Seat mounting

Started on the frame mount for the seat. Roughed out the shape in 10mm plate and drilled a hole to see how it lines up. I'm not going to mount it like that though, I'll weld the other lug I machined onto it so the seat bracket sits nice and neat.

It's just a starting point for now