So you’re flippin’ through your favorite scooter mag and you’re “oohin and ahhin” at the steel beauties inside, but did you ever think about what the inspiration was behind some of the killer lines on todays chops? Of course not, unless you’re a metal fabricator yourself or you’re on acid.
Today’s metal fabricator has become the Michelangelo of the custom bike scene and with their rising ability to use old hot rod parts, hood ornaments and every day household objects. It makes me wonder, how in the hell they look at an old piece of junk and say, “Man, you know what you could make outta’ that?”
So in this issue of the Cycle Source Handmade Tech feature, the staff followed one of these metal madmen through just such a process and tried to give the average eye a look into the world of custom metal arts.
Pat Patterson of Led Sled Customs in Dayton, Ohio has been building bikes for quite some time and his level of perfection, when it comes to metal fab, is undisputed. With bikes like the Impaler, featuring a 1959 Caddy taillight and hood pins, to Whiskey Bent using a fin from a ‘68 Chevy Impala as part of the gas tank, their bikes are often pushed to the limit of creativity. In their latest build though, Pat confided in me that an idea jumped into his head, so outrageous, even the other guys in the shop thought he was out there.
It was a few years ago and they were all at Pat’s brother, Jeff’s, when some cat pulled up in a 1965 Chevy pickup truck. It was all decked out and everyone was standing around staring at it when Pat said “Man, the lines of that hood would make a cool gas tank for a bike.”
In spite of everyone’s bewildered glares, Pat held on to the idea of the ‘65 truck hood for nearly a year when he got the chance to buy his own. He spent months staring at the hood and mapping out a plan.
After trying to locate a supplier for a re-pop hood, to no avail, the Led Sled crew took it to the yard. Germantown, Ohio is the location of one of the coolest bone yards in their area and as luck would have it, after three poorly maintained hoods, one gem was unearthed.
So they found one that was a beauty but had three layers of lead paint piled on top of the steel. Pat thought he’d be sterile by the time he grinded all that paint off; smells great when you weld on it. Still, here was the start and they dove in with both feet.
Even though it might look like crude, basic work to make things fit right, metal fabrication takes a ton of patience and many, many measurements. Here you can see the basic lines they decided to save from the center section of the hood. He fired up the plasma cutter and began.
Both sides of the hood were cut away to precise dimensions. They were selected for their shape and the cool rain grooves that would lend well to the new tank design. At this point, Pat had three sections of the old hood to work with and he was ready to start fitting it.
With even more material cut away, the sides of the old truck hood started to take the shape of a fuel tank. Pat lined both halves up and gauged where the first tack welds should go. After this stage it was loosely fit on the backbone estimated base measurements.
Now that the base width was established, it was time to start figuring how to work in that cool center line from the old hood. As you can see here, there’s way too much metal to work with and Pat took it back to the plasma cutter for some trimming, some shifting and bending, and voila, it was time to weld! One sheet metal code called for cutting every chunk on the large side. It was easy to trim, and in many cases, impossible to replace.
Pat will probably kill me for makin’ that last step sound easy. It actually took hours of painstaking measuring and bending and shaping and reshaping to get to the point where he was satisfied with the final application. Once he was, and he tack-welded it in place, serious time came into play. Let the welding begin!
With the shape in solid form, Pat sat the shell on the backbone of the bike to determine the depth and angle the tunnel. The tunnel was the bottom portion of the tank and various concave centers allowed the tank to set lower or deeper over the frame backbone.
This wasn’t a simple frame to tank configuration. Pat needed to cut out specialty pieces to construct the tunnel, as opposed to just bending a flat sheet around a frame tube to design the center mount. His design called for the front to sit lower than the rear to achieve the look he wanted.
Once the filler neck and petcock bung were installed (another trick) everything has to be rechecked. Next, Cole came in for specialty fabrication work, with Pat, on the tank mounts. Using handmade buckles that are mounted from the top of the backbone, the tank mounted to the buckles, giving it a clean finish.
After some serious love and care from the body man, the tank was mudded, smoothed and primered. It was ready for paint and experienced one more dry fit to make sure all was well with mounting and clearance. With those requirements satisfied, it was off to the color shop. Pat selected a design that would really utilize the lines borrowed from the old truck hood. With some thick-as-hell metal flake and some wicked Shane Syx pinstriping, the bike came to life in a damn hurry.
The ultimate tank design was the perfect match for the Mail Man’s aggressive Paughco frame and 18-over springer combination. In spite of the great big giant hood that they started out with for this gas tank build, the boyz at Led Sleds pulled off an amazing creation.
So there ya’ have it, about $100 into an old truck hood and more hours than they care to add up, the cats from Led Sleds fabricated a one of a kind original gas tank that the average schmo would pay a thousand dollars for on e-bay. But the part that’s worth all the money is the doing it yourself aspect. So get up and go to your local boneyard, man. Who knows what treasures wait for you there…a gas tank from an old jalopy or a rear fender from a Bug quarter panel. Hey, what do ya think we could make that old ice cream truck into? Makes you wonder.
