Stainless exhaust for xs650 "Salt Racer"

Got the exhaust done on the "Salt Racer" today. I up'ed the size to 1.75" and made some clean simple pipes for this one. They flow well with the over all look of the bike.
Since they are stainless I will just scotch bright them and polish for the finished look.

Good bye my friend

Well Josh came down from Brownwood today to pick up the "Frisco". It was kinda surreal helping him and his dad load her up into the back of their pick up and then seeing them drive off.I got kind of a empty feeling in my gut like i was loosing a part of me. It's the same feeling I had when I sold my first build.
There's a bond between that metal and myself and it will always be there .Good bye my friend and thanks for sticking by myside and being so good to me for the past 2 years.

Elephant Seat

This is Damian's seat from San Antonio. He showed up at my house with a whole elephant hide and wanted a seat made with it. The tannery shaved the hide down way to much ( you could see day light through it if you held it up to the sun) So I had to glue it to a piece of cow hide to make sure it wouldn't rip or tear down the line.
The back of it is molded to the custom pan also. The seat turned out pretty cool.
Hope you dig it!

Tunnel tool and tunnel done

The last time i did a tunnel was for Chris at Limey Bikes . It was a pain in the ass to do cause I opted to do it the old fashioned way and bend the metal by hand over a piece of rigid conduit. Yeah that sucked!
This time around I saw this write up on Chop Cult and used it to my benefit.

"Narrowing a Gas Tank with Special 79"

http://www.chopcult.com/news/articles/six-pack-narrowing-a-gas-tank-with-special-79.html?comment_id=5249

The whole segment is really awesome and I used almost all of it as a step by step to split,narrow and tunnel this tank. Big shout out to Jay Roche from Special 79 for taking the time to show us the step by step on how to do this ourselves.
Here's a few pics of the tool and the finished tunnel.

Tunnel and moon disc

So I got the bottom of the tank welded in and cut out ready for the tunnel. I also got the moon disc in from Moon Eyes although I had to send them back to get the proper dish depth. I ran into issues with the speedo gear on the front wheel and also the drum side of the rear wheel. Bob at Moon Eyes has really helped me out on this. Thanks Brother !
It's really an awesome feeling seeing this thing come together after years of just a thought in the back of my head.
I should have the new moon disc's sometime in the next two weeks . So till then I'll finish up the tank and maybe start on the exhaust. enjoy the pics guys!

tank bottom

The first step I took on this was to make a poster board template making sure to arch the poster board with the arch in the bottom of the tank. This was done to insure I had plenty of material to work with. I then transferred it to MDF and routed the edges with a quarter round bit. This was done to make sure once i started to roll the edges I would get a smooth roll. Once that edges were rolled over the form I had to create the arch in the tank bottom to match the tank. What I did was make small cuts in on the edges and then beat the arch into it with a rubber mallet.
Once I get the bottom welded in place I will start on the tunnel. Till then thanks for looking!

CUT ME UP

I cut up the Cole Foster tank today. Took about 1 1/4" at the top and about 5/8" at the rear.
It came out just the way I wanted it to. It Slimmed out the bulky front just enough to make it flow a little better. Next step a new tunnel.

some time with the "salt racer"

Finally got out in the shop today to work on my Salt Racer project. Got the engine set in the frame so i could start fabing up the exhaust and mid-controls. I also set the tank on which is a Cole Foster replica.It looks good but I'm thinking that I am going to narrow it about an inch and a half and take the rib out of it, In doing that I'm going to redo the tunnel with a nice rounded one that fits the frame better. Enjoy the pics!