Tweaker's Rehab

[tjwilson]

Seat Base Rear Mount

The mounting tabs required an in-vice hammer adjustment to match the seat angle.

 

[tjwilson]

Rear Light

This is why I have a hard time throwing stuff out! A left over 3" dia tube piece in my cut-offs bin caught my attention. A few cuts and now it's the start for a rear light.

 

[tjwilson]

Fender Skirts

I've been waiting to sink my teeth into these forever. Finally getting the chance. Started by refining the template.

Traced the template onto 20 ga sheet and cut the pieces out with a cutoff wheel and refined the shape with a flap disc.

The time messing with the template seemed to really pay off when forming the sides to the top. They bent and fit in place pretty painlessly. Forming the shape around the tail light opening was definitely harder to get what I wanted but I'm happy with the way they turned out.

Next I rolled the edges along the wheel openings. Top is after, bottom before edge roll.

For nearly all of the roll I used mostly the circular base of a vise clamped into a work table to hammer against.

 

[tjwilson]

Fender Skirts Continued

Still some additional finessing around the wheel openings, some smoothing, and edge fill/rounding needed but, I'm pretty excited with the results so far.

 

[Captain Awesome]

Artistry

 

[SwissGuy]

Seeing your work makes my longing for a proper workshop almost unbearable...
I wish I knew how to weld...!

 

[nevin]

unbelievable work!
... (picking jaw up form ground...)

 

[tjwilson]

Seat Pan

New template, more 20 ga sheet, some cutoff wheel and flap disc work and, a bit of bending.

Seat Profile

I needed to determine a better approximation of the seat profile so I could build up the seat pan. I'll be using 3/4" neoprene for the seat cushion. Using the seat profile template I made earlier as a reference, I cut a 1" wide strip and messed with it till I had something I liked. I then made a template to fill the space below the neoprene strip.

 

[tjwilson]

Seat Pan Continued

The bottom of the seat pan is really easy to bend out of shape. I'm pretty sure if I had a bead roller a nice bead along the center would add some much needed rigidity without adding weight. Thought I could be clever and try to get similar results with some doctored vice grips. Was worth a try but... didn't work out. Ultimately I ended up adding some 3/8" solid rod for strength at the front and rear of the pan.

Additional pieces to finish it off.

Pan inprocess.

One last template and top piece.

 

[tjwilson]

Padding the Seat

Three quarter inch neoprene trimmed, glued to the seat pan with Super 77 adhesive, and shaped with a knife, sandpaper and belt sander.

 

[tjwilson]

Overview Shots with Seat

I'm a little undecided with the final shaping so far. At times it looks too big and bulky to me, other times just right. Leaving it as is for now and moving on to the front end. Easier to go back and remove more foam than to add!

 

[MattiThundrrr]

The hump on the seat looks odd to me. Is the idea for function, a perch for your posterior? Visually, it feels like it should be uniform thickness from one end to the other.

 

[kingfish254]

WOW again! So much to take in when I was 1.5 pages behind on your build. Hard to believe how much work and coolness you have squeezed into just 3 pages. Another masterpiece!

 

[tjwilson]

WOW again! So much to take in when I was 1.5 pages behind on your build. Hard to believe how much work and coolness you have squeezed into just 3 pages. Another masterpiece!

Thank you very much, you are too kind.

 

[tjwilson]

The hump on the seat looks odd to me. Is the idea for function, a perch for your posterior? Visually, it feels like it should be uniform thickness from one end to the other.

Thanks for your thoughts, much appreciated.

Ah that hump! Actually, I kind of like the oddness of it... or maybe the idea of the oddness. In the same sense that my first pass at the wheel openings pretty much followed the radius of the tire and looked good but, I chose to push the opening forward. Trying to avoid blindly accepting my instinctual first choices with this build in the hopes of creating something more interesting. A fine line ripe for disaster... not that my instinctual first choices are that good!

But back to the hump... basically it keeps you from sliding forward on the seat. That's the purpose anyway. The design came from those funky king/queen seats from the late sixties or early seventies. I do want to try to retain some of that funkyness. I think I've come to the conclusion that it might be that the proportions are off and the seat area is just too big? I tried a digital seat thinning. Still haven't made any final decisions yet though.

 

[SwissGuy]

I like the "before" better. I think it fills the gap between guard and toptube a bit better....

 

[Captain Awesome]

I like the "before" better. I think it fills the gap between guard and toptube a bit better....

Agreed

 

[kingfish254]

I also like the Before digital trimming pic better too. The seat section flows just fine with the build. Just the right amount of ODDNESS

 

[karl]

Love the hump! Besides, when i see this unearthly design, the last thing i think is: hmm, that seat is slidely off..

 

[GeePig]

I am waiting to see what will happen at the front, and how that affects the back.