Thanks for the nice comments you guys. Sam, yes I like the photo, very cool, and I hope you're enjoying being in California. Tyreslider, yes that is the same tank I made before to the Worksman frame dimensions you gave me last winter... so you see you are part of this build, too. Steve and I were talking this morning about how neat it is having this thread and this forum with this great community of like minded people... feeling like you guys are kind of looking over our shoulders a bit as we work, curious about what the Lone Ranger and Tonto are up to. The sidecar has been a very gratifying 'side' project which has turned out better than I anticipated. When the time comes to do a second one it will go quicker and easier than the first, but I expect will be made in much the same way. I don't know at this point how to improve on it, but maybe after it has been joined to the bike and has some miles on it something will need tweaking. Just looking at it sitting there on the frame with a wheel next to it is satisfying. By the end of the day when tools were put away, after a swim with a bar of soap in the lake, a dinner of red beans and rice with a cold can of beer, we sat outside looking at it. The sun had set and a full moon was rising above the tree line when Steve said, "that little thing is so sweet it's like homemade candy". And it is.
CANOE SIDECAR BODY FINISHED
While Steve worked over the stern skin piece with a propane torch and heated, pounded with a rubber mallet, bent and otherwise convinced the panel to flatten out, I worked over the bow "deck' piece, cutting the overlap with tin snips, drilling new holes and pop riveting it to the canoe. Steve then drilled holes in the stern skin and fixed it to the wooden stern piece with pan head screws. He allowed for overlap with the idea of attaching the skin first and then trimming off the excess after.
cont.)