A racer is born...

Work continues of the cafe racer.  The plan is to rebuild the entire rear section of the frame for a seat and a fairing.  On the stock BMW, the seat rises up from behind the tank, making the rider sit high and in my opinion, very unsightly  With the new rear section, the rider will be lowered approximately 3" to 4". 

It all starts with a template.  I wanted the rear to mimic the lines of the gas tank.  I really like the factory tank and have no plans on changing it...yet.

From there, a wooden buck was built.

And overlaid with paper to get a rough pattern.

I usually like to try and shrink the metal instead of stretch it.  The reasoning behind this is that when you shrink, the metal becomes thicker and thicker material is easier to weld and grind.  However, because the fairing half had so much shape to it, I had to stretch it in the middle.

Then for time with the thumbnail dies in the pullmax...

More stretching and shrinking...

Once the part has some resemblance to the shape I want, it gets smoothed in the english wheel

Close, but is still needs some work.  On smaller jobs like these, the buck is more of a suggestion rather than  what the final shape has to be.  As long as both halves look the similar.

Fast forward....the other side is completed enough to weld together...

I still needs a bit of finish work.  I am thinking of cutting it down since it looks almost as large as the tank.  At least I can start on the rear section of the frame and finalize the size once I can get a visual of a rider.