Hammerform

I started on the hammerform for the Rickati gas tank. I ran a 2x8 through the planer to take the cup out of it and then a couple of my guys who are also in the wood shop, glued five pieces together for me. I'm starting with a block that is roughly 7" x 7" x 18. I drew a three view drawing of the tank shape I'm looking for and used the drawings for patterns for my layout lines.

The first problem was that the laminated block was initially too big to cut on the bandsaw. I used a combination of saws to rough it out and then switched to a block plane, rasp and sander. The idea here is to keep the left and right halves symmetric. I know this is going to be a lot of work just on the hammerform but I don't thing I can do the job justice with just a buck made from plywood. There are people who can just do it by eye. I don't think I'll live long enough to get to that level of mastery. And I'm in pretty good health! I should have been working on the sheetmetal skills a lot harder over the years. I made my 900 with the sidecar a good twenty years ago and struggled to build the tank on that one. If I would have kept after it, this tank would be a cinch. In fact, I'd be working on the aluminum fenders already.