So whilst the foam was curing for the seat, i set about working out how to go about making the knee dents in my tank.

This was very useful:

So I went out and tried to get hold of a Nylon panel hammer and had no luck, so after a quick trip to Tool Station i had a 24oz white head rubber mallet for the pricely sum of £3.82. I then took a file to the end of the mallet to round it over and volia an incredibly cheap panel hammer.

	White Head Rubber Mallet 24oz

I then went about beating the hell out of the fuel tank, if your going to do this make sure you do it on the bike. It is easier to work and it also puts the tank under some tension when you beat the sides in. When i did this off the bike it made the tank too narrow to fit over the top bar and I had to bend it out to fit.

Once the tank was in the right sort of shape, I stripped it down to bear metal with nitromors and a stripping wheel. It is much easier to work with paint on the tank as you can see the dent and curves better.

The Tank came up beautifully. I think I might just leave it as raw steel and clear coat it!

So after a bit more hammering  a week of filling, sanding and painting began..

Its getting there, but still needs a fair bit of work!

Some inspiration - (What do almost all of these have in common?):

Knee Dents!

Once I had the tail template finished I tidied up the plywood base and cut out the templates from mdf to make a form for the buck I am going to use to make the fibreglass seat from.

 

I fixed the MDF formers in place with good old fashioned glue gun glue, that stuff worked like a charm and is surprisingly strong. Once it had cooled down I filled the mould with polyurethane builders foam. 

On retrospect I used far too much, the foam doubled again in size from what you can see in the photos, needless to say it was a complete mess, and this stuff will really stick anything to anything!

Once this cures you can start to trim it down and shape it.

So I stripped the bike down some more and started to play around with a template for the cafe seat.

Once i had got the seat to the right sort of length and over hand I cut the based out of a piece of 25mm Plywood, and then started to mock up the rough shape of the tail on the seat pan out of card.

I pondered with cutting down the original seat pan to base the the Cafe seat on, but came to the conclusion that it would be defeating the point of making a cafe seat as it would still have a lump of steel plate for a seat pan.

As a result i have started to play with the idea of building a pan from scratch.

This guy knows his stuff.

So i have started stripping the bike down, it turns out the guy before sprayed the tank in celulose, but did not finish it with a petrol resistant clear coat, which is really bad news for the paint!

I have removed the seat foam to see what it would look like without the bulk and I have flipped the bars to give it a cafe racer look, let know what you think.

I started looking for an older 125 bike that would work with the cafe racer look, I soon narrowed down to the trusty Honda CG 125.  They are a good old sturdy work horse of a bike that has been the commuter bike of choice for generations.  They are simple, easy to fix, and most of all cheap so if I make a bodge of it I haven't lost very much at all!

I started looking over eBay to find a suitable victim and came across a 1979 Honda CG125. £200 later and  I am the owner of a great project bike ready to be stripped down. It is actually a great runner and in pretty good condition considering it age.

Project CG Cafe Racer has commenced!

I have always wanted to get my bike licence, and unless you do the direct access courses in the UK and then jump straight on the back of a bigger bike ( Which I would undoubtedly cause myself some serious damage doing) you have to travel the 125cc Motorcycle rite of passage.

This lead me on to a long and winding paths of trying to find a bike that would suit what I want, I have no interest in 2 stoke bikes, so that quickly ruled the Aprillas, Cagivas and other "exotic" 125s out. 

I have respect for them, the Rotax engines and their cc to horsepower output is truly amazing, but i really have no desire to ride down a road on something that sounds incredibly similar to a number of pissed off wasps trapped in a beer can!

I soon started to investigate a number of 4 stroke options but nothing really caught my eye, I have always love Triumph Bonneville's, and after a few hours of scouring the net I found this. The Sinnis  Trackstar.

Sinnis are british bike builder based in Brighton. The frames of the bikes are from China, the Engines are licenced suzuki units, and the bikes are put together at their main workshop in UK.

Sinnis are also soon to release the "Classic" which looks a bit like a Bonneville, but they are expensive for what they are, and are essentially Chinese bikes put together in England. Chinese bikes are great, but not for me.

This leaves me with a Four Stroke Japanese Bike.

As I want this as a commuter bike, I don't really want a crosser, and the "Sport" Bike 125s made by Honda, and Yamaha look good (yzf r125), but they don't have to go to match their looks, which to me sort of defeats the objective.

One evening whilst scouring the internet on the laptop, my girlfriend and I sat and watched " The World's Fastest Indian" if you haven't watched it, and are in anyway interested in Motorcycles, Racing, Speed, or almost anything petrol related I would really advise you watch it. It is the story of the trials and tribulations of Burt Munro and his trip to the salt flats to race his Indian Special custom race bike.

Its a great story, and inspired me to look and few classic racing bikes. It lead me down path of bobbers, choppers and flat track racers, until I got to the Cafe Racers by which point it was too late and the seed was planted....