SteveK's Cafe Build: "Sledge"

[SteveK]

SteveK's Cafe Build: "The Marrakesh Express"

Hey everyone,

So trying to build a cafe while attending law school is pretty tricky... who knew?

I haven't had much time to post on here, but I wanted to start a (belated) build thread to keep everyone up on my progress and ask everyone for help when issues beyond my limited knowledge come up. This forum has been a priceless wealth of knowledge for the few things I've done so far, and I can't thank everyone enough.

I'll post some more pics later, but this is what I have on my comp now that I can post (as I sit bored in class of course).

 

[scoutnaround]

looks great how did you form the tank?

 

[SteveK]

I actually wanted to put together a mini-write up, but Skillzman's How-to was so good I decided that I wouldn't really need to do my own.

The only thing that I did different from his write-up was hammering out the underside of the tank to get it to fit onto my frame. The tank came from a 76 RD400. After a ton of searching around on the forum I couldn't find a definitive answer on whether or not one of those would fit on the XS's frame.

Well I decided to try my luck and got a used tank on ebay. I had to dent in the underside of the tank to get it to fit, but it sits really nicely on the coils with some extra space to hide some wiring underneath it. The cup mounts in the front are the same and I'm just going to weld a tab on the back underside to attach it to the frame with a bolt.

I shaped the tank (and eliminated a bunch of dents) with the hammer and bondo method. Hammered out the knee dents to make them more pronounced and used bondo to smooth it out and give it more pronounced lines in the front.

 

[SteveK]

P.S. I have the original square-style 77 XS400D style tank that I'm not going to use anymore. It has one tiny circular dent (the size of a pea) on the left hand side from my clip ons bumping into it, but it is clean as hell on the inside. PM me if you'd be interested in buying it. I'll get around to posting a classified for it soon.

 

[scoutnaround]

looks really good, the hammer seams to be the way a lot of people go. i am a fan of cut and weld, but i do understand that a lot of people don't weld. looks great though

 

[isigt]

nice start!
really like how that tank came out.

 

[Pork Chop]

that tank came out looking sweet.

 

[XS-Time]

Yeah the tank looks good but I am realy liking the gold painted rims.

 

[SteveK]

Haha, damnit! Your response came too late XS-Time! I literally just repainted the rims black.

I switched up what I want to do for a color scheme. I was originally going to do the gold rims with a white tank/seat with red racing stripe and red fenders.

Now I'm going to go with a brown/black combination. BMW Marrakesh Brown Metallic paint for the tank/seat with a black racing stripe down the middle and black fenders. I also ordered the light brown Posh grips http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-63715787641716_2176_2512072 straight from Nippon for $25.

I even have a theme song... Crosby, Stills, and Nash's "Marrakesh Express."

 

[SteveK]

Here's what the Marrakesh Brown Metallic looks like:

And here's what I'm going to be humming once she's all back together:

 

[SteveK]

I'm also going to be painting the engine black. I wanted the bolts to match, but I didn't want to paint them because that would just mean chipping and ugliness.

So my dad (who is a big gun nut) told me about using drain cleaner to chemically blacken steel. He's done it before to blue parts for his guns.

It was actually really easy and the bolts turned out jet black with none of the brittleness that comes from tempering them. And as a plus I have the solution saved so I can re-use it whenever I want... cost me $7 total.

Here's a pic of the results. I can do a write-up with pics if people are interested... I have some more bolts that need to be done.

 

[drewpy]

I'm also going to be painting the engine black. I wanted the bolts to match, but I didn't want to paint them because that would just mean chipping and ugliness.

So my dad (who is a big gun nut) told me about using drain cleaner to chemically blacken steel. He's done it before to blue parts for his guns.

It was actually really easy and the bolts turned out jet black with none of the brittleness that comes from tempering them. And as a plus I have the solution saved so I can re-use it whenever I want... cost me $7 total.

Here's a pic of the results. I can do a write-up with pics if people are interested... I have some more bolts that need to be done.

cool, write up and method would be great on the blacking tecnique!

 

[SteveK]

You got it Drewpy! Just happy to be giving back to you and the rest of the forum for all the knowledge I've found on here.

 

[Mhassic]

Nice, cant wait for the method. =)

 

[XS-Time]

As much as I like the gold rims , The black rims and brown paint is going to look realy good. It's good to be different. I also like your choice of grips. I am also using Gran Turismo style grips on my build.
I have never heard of blackening metal like that before. Verry interesting. Does the blackening leave a protective coating so they won't rust?

 

[SteveK]

Haha, thanks XS. Yea, I figured brown is already a tricky enough color to pull off properly, so I want to limit the amount of other colors and keep it as simple as possible. Brown, black, and a few bits of chrome.

As for the blackening with lye... Yea, the blackening is a chemical reaction that takes place in the steel that serves as a protective coating. It is essentially a cheap way of "bluing" steel, which is what gunmakers have been doing to protect guns from rust for hundreds of years now.

It's especially suited for the bolts on our bikes, because it doesn't leave the steel brittle.

 

[FlyingAnvil]

Nice job, great ideas. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

 

[heffa]

I would like to know more about the drain cleaner process!