A Few New Pieces, Tanks Bibs, Etc.

[Bobby hdflame]

It's been a good while since I last posted work so I thought I'd throw up a few pics. Unfortunately, this is not the full list of projects from the last month as it seems only about 20% of folks send installed pics back for the website. Anyway, here are a couple of the ones that did...

Cheers,

Chris

This last one was a tank bib I did previously, the USN Navy pin-up. unfortunately the bike is no longer with us, so the client has be deconstruct it and turn it into a vest backpatch and sew it on for him:

Chris,

They all look great! But, since I'm a Navy vet, I really like the pin-up on the anchor! How did you do the coloring on that? I can't enlarge enough to see a lot of fine detail but it looks amazing! Paints, dyes? Airbrush?

[Spinner]

Thanks everyone!

Chris,

They all look great! But, since I'm a Navy vet, I really like the pin-up on the anchor! How did you do the coloring on that? I can't enlarge enough to see a lot of fine detail but it looks amazing! Paints, dyes? Airbrush?

Thanks Bobby, the answer is yes.

Obviously the black background areas are dyed. Black Pro-Oil Dye.

The pin-up was done with brushes and airbrushes using Golden Fluid acrylics and Golden Airbrush Medium to thin.

[Boyd]

WOW that's AWESOME work Man!

How do you make your paterns? I'm going to make a tank cover for my bike as soon as I figure what I want to carve on it but I still have no clue how to start.

Also, I have a 2002 Shadow ACE (American Clasic Edition) which was right before the AREO. I totaly love the side covers. How the heck did you do that!

If you send some instruction my way I'd totaly appreciate it!

Boyd

[mikesmith648]

great work Spinner!!!!!!!

[Jimbob]

Need phone number of that USN Navy chick....haha....well done, me not a fan of tank bibs, but this is great leather work, clean and well build!!

Like your wet forming arround tank...

Greetings

James

[Spinner]

Thanks Mike & James. James, I know what you mean, the original artwork is still hanging in my shop 2 years later.

WOW that's AWESOME work Man!

How do you make your paterns? I'm going to make a tank cover for my bike as soon as I figure what I want to carve on it but I still have no clue how to start.

Also, I have a 2002 Shadow ACE (American Clasic Edition) which was right before the AREO. I totaly love the side covers. How the heck did you do that!

If you send some instruction my way I'd totaly appreciate it!

Boyd

Hey Boyd, Thanks. On the patterns, start with your center line. Fold a piece of posterboard in half and use painter's tape to attach it down the center of the tank. Now you can mark off the brackets, fuel tube, etc. on the top of the tank and cut those out. Reattach the pattern to the tank (still folded in half) so it goes around all the brackets, etc. Put the dash on and trace the outside shape. Mark the rearmost edge of the tank, mark the curve where the top rolls to the rear edge and make notes of the widths all the way up the center line. Now you can take that off the tank and use various tools like french curves to make the bib profile. with it still folded in half design the shape and cut the pattern out, unfold and you have a perfectly symmetrical pattern. The process for the whaletail patterns has a number of additional steps to get them just right but they stay in the 'safe' just like Coca-Cola's recipe.

On the side covers, The ones with the pockets are specific to the '04-current Aero that I can tell so far. No other bike I have checked out, including the ACE and Spirit, VTXs, and a number of Zukis and Yamas have the same "dead space" behind the covers as the Aero does. To make them I had to drill about 30 holes in an Aero cover set and use a rod to do depth findings and figure out the pocket space. Once that was figured out, I made up a pattern for the hole placement and pocket sizes. From there I cut out the opening, attach a leather pocket from behind using contact cement and then drill stitching holes through the pocket & cover to sew it in permanently. With the pocket done, the leather is wet formed around the face. Make a top piece for it and then pull all the leather off to punch the lacing holes. Now the leather is glued onto the cover with Barge on both surfaces, dyed, finished and then the top and face are laced together using a modified "over only" mexican round braid. Make up the flaps, straps and buckle holds, attach with chicago screws (so they can be repaired or replaced if needed) and they're all done! Easy, right? Now, it is possible to wrap any side cover and exclude the pockets. I have done this for a couple of VTXs and they turn out pretty nice as well. Just skip to the leather forming part and proceed from there.

Cheers,

Chris

Edited August 28, 2012 by Spinner

[Spinner]

WOW that's AWESOME work Man!

How do you make your paterns? I'm going to make a tank cover for my bike as soon as I figure what I want to carve on it but I still have no clue how to start.

Also, I have a 2002 Shadow ACE (American Clasic Edition) which was right before the AREO. I totaly love the side covers. How the heck did you do that!

If you send some instruction my way I'd totaly appreciate it!

Boyd

Hey Boyd,

I just happened to start working on a set of side covers for a 2007 VTX1800F last night so I took a few pics during the process that you might find some inspiration from. The first is post wet forming the face shells. I take them off to punch the lacing holes and then glue them when I put them back on. the second pic shows one cover with just the face glued on and one cover with the face glued on, the top made & glued on and dyed with Black Pro Oil dye. You can see the two sets of lacing holes waiting for the basket weave. I'll see about snapping a few more pics as I go along.

Chris

[Boyd]

That's awesome help Chris! Thanks.

You are right about the room inbehind the covers. I checked when I went out to the bike. I never thought about forming the whole thing, I might try that next. First I’m going to try a semi-permanent cover (I’ll take pictures and post a new subject when I’m done). They won’t be anything fancy and I’ll probably use some scrap leather just to see how it turns out.

When you glue the pieces on do you rough up the side covers first or does the glue stick without doing that? I assume you use contact cement in the photo.

I live in the one place in Canada where we can ride all year round so I’ll probably wait until mid to late September before try the tank bra.

Thanks again and you’ll hear more from me.

Boyd

[Spinner]

That's awesome help Chris! Thanks.

You are right about the room inbehind the covers. I checked when I went out to the bike. I never thought about forming the whole thing, I might try that next. First I'm going to try a semi-permanent cover (I'll take pictures and post a new subject when I'm done). They won't be anything fancy and I'll probably use some scrap leather just to see how it turns out.

When you glue the pieces on do you rough up the side covers first or does the glue stick without doing that? I assume you use contact cement in the photo.

I live in the one place in Canada where we can ride all year round so I'll probably wait until mid to late September before try the tank bra.

Thanks again and you'll hear more from me.

Boyd

Not a problem, I don't enjoy making them enough to guard the secrets! Bibs are a different story, love doing those.

I do use Barge Contact cement on both surfaces for the gluing. Rough up isn't really necessary but it helps. I found that just cleaning the plastics with denatured alcohol takes enough of the gloss out of the clear coat to get good adhesion.

The original set of these is still one the road and looking good 3 years and rolling. (They were the only tan set I've done as well, coincidence?)

Here's another tip...when you go to 'contact' the two glued pieces together, lightly wet the leather first. This will help as you're lining everything up, sometimes you need to stretch it just 1/8" more and it will give you a few extra seconds of smoothing time if a wrinkle appears...also, rig a vice or something to hold the cover so you have both hands to align the pieces. Last tip: to make the top pieces, glue the face on and then lay a piece of tracing film over the top. Then yuo simply trace the outline of the remaining uncovered top area and transfer that to leather.

have fun!