I have been working on a new gas tank for the tricar. The one I made was from the first photo of one I saw and it turns out to have been one of the first 3 they made as proto types in 1901/1902. They had a small tank.
Looking at the others as I've gone along I saw the tank was much bigger and finally I found a close up of one from a few angles and have been able to figure out how to make/fake one that will be close to an original. This bike is far from a copy but that is no reason not to try and get as close as possible to the original.
The sides are simply cut out of a sheet of body metal. The top is a strip of body metal that I bent the sides on. To do this without a sheet metal brake I measured a 1/4" in on each side then clamped two angle iron bed rails in the vise. Slid the metal in and put the scribe mark even with the top edge of the angle iron.
Clamped the vise tight, leveled up the two halves of the angle iron with a square and made sure the metal was even along the length of the metal, put C clamps on the angle to hold it tight and started tapping the metal over using a short piece of 1x4. I have found that it's best to start on the top edge of the metal and bend it just a bit as you go along. Each pass you can bend farther down the steel until the last pass you flatten it against the angle iron. You may need to give it one last pass using the hammer only.
I made a form to hold the tank in place as it's being soldered using some MDF and scrap plywood as a filler to get the right thickness.
I notched the sides every 1/2" so it would bend and then every 1'" as it leveled out. I'll solder it tomorrow and post some more photos tomorrow night. That's if I'm not doing the not happy dance in the garage because it didn't work.
Steve.
Looking at the others as I've gone along I saw the tank was much bigger and finally I found a close up of one from a few angles and have been able to figure out how to make/fake one that will be close to an original. This bike is far from a copy but that is no reason not to try and get as close as possible to the original.
The sides are simply cut out of a sheet of body metal. The top is a strip of body metal that I bent the sides on. To do this without a sheet metal brake I measured a 1/4" in on each side then clamped two angle iron bed rails in the vise. Slid the metal in and put the scribe mark even with the top edge of the angle iron.
Clamped the vise tight, leveled up the two halves of the angle iron with a square and made sure the metal was even along the length of the metal, put C clamps on the angle to hold it tight and started tapping the metal over using a short piece of 1x4. I have found that it's best to start on the top edge of the metal and bend it just a bit as you go along. Each pass you can bend farther down the steel until the last pass you flatten it against the angle iron. You may need to give it one last pass using the hammer only.
I made a form to hold the tank in place as it's being soldered using some MDF and scrap plywood as a filler to get the right thickness.
I notched the sides every 1/2" so it would bend and then every 1'" as it leveled out. I'll solder it tomorrow and post some more photos tomorrow night. That's if I'm not doing the not happy dance in the garage because it didn't work.
Steve.
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