OzVMX Forum
Clubroom => General Discussion => Topic started by: Branchy on February 17, 2014, 06:35:50 pm
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What grade / thickness sheet aluminium would you use to build a tank on a dirt bike , only tight bend the tunnel but not much elsewhere mainly flat cut pattern with slight bends
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Try to get 1111 series in O condition, hard to get though. You will only get sheet in 5000 or 7000 series
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3003 is a common alloy in the US for bodywork. It is nearly identical to 1100 but is slightly stronger. Usually people get 1/4 hard temper. That is what I used to make a tank for my KT250.
I think Dick Mann has used 6061 for dirt bike tanks. It will be harder to form and may not be very friendly for tight radii, but for a simple dirt bike tank shape it probably adds some useful dent resistance especially in thinner gauges.
Evan Wilcox uses 1100 in .080" thickness but then his tanks have a lot of shape to them and he delivers everything fully polished so he likes having the extra material for the sanding/polishing. He uses 1100 because with 1100 wire the welds will not be visible when polished. 1100 wire with 3003 can be slightly visible.
1.5mm /16g thickness is pretty standard unless you are building a one-season tank for someone who doesn't fall down, in which case you could go down a gauge.
cheers,
Michael
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thanks michael thanks great info, i am in the pattern stage at this time and will be sourcing product soon.
i am attempting to build a tank for my yamaha wr500 which it seems that they are dam hard to find if not impossible , branchy
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Hey Branchy a guy on here KDX175 cast (yes cast) a KDX tank.
It looked good and from memory was not crazy heavy.
Drop him a pm maybe it helps you.
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how is 3003 grade?
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If you register at
http://www.metalmeet.com/forum/index.php
and
http://allmetalshaping.com/
you'll get access to a wealth of panel-beating experience and knowledge.
Here's a link to matweb's specs on 1100-O temper
http://www.matweb.com/search/DataSheet.aspx?MatGUID=db0307742df14c8f817bd8d62207368e&ckck=1
and to 3003-O
http://www.matweb.com/search/DataSheet.aspx?MatGUID=fd4a40f87d3f4912925e5e6eab1fbc40
you can see that 3003 has a yield of 38Mpa at 100c and 1100 is 32Mpa, while 1100 is slightly more ductile, but with 40+% elongation that's not an issue.
cheers,
Michael
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Sorry Michael I skimmed through your post and didn't see what you wrote prior re 3003. I'd like to have a go at al. side plates,and 3003 is readily available over here, but not 1100 in 1.5 mm
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No problem, matweb is a very useful resource that everyone should know about.
cheers,
Michael
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Can’t say I have come across 3003 or 1100 while working in the trade.
5005 & 5356 are the common grades here in Aust.
Looking through the matweb site (it does seem a good site for info) 5005 & 3003 look to be almost identical in physical properties.
5005 is used for a lot of fabrication work where bending is required and strength isn’t overly important.
5356 has more strength than 5005 and will be a bit harder to work into shape although normal bending should be fine.
I have some plans to build some tanks in the future and I would just be using the 5005 in 2mm (0.80”)
As mentioned you can polish the bejeezus out of it but it is also more forgiving when welding and be more resistant to dents from knees.
The 2mm will fold fine but just be harder to form any dome type shapes.
I slapped this one together in a hurry back in 87
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a393/gmcloa/My%20bikes/87KX125after.jpg) (http://s15.photobucket.com/user/gmcloa/media/My%20bikes/87KX125after.jpg.html)
It’s a bit crude actually but it did the job at the time.
I think I used 1.5mm 5005 at the time.
It ended up lighter than the plastic tank by a couple of ounces despite it holding nearly 3 litres more than stock.
I wasn’t chasing lightness at the time and it actually cracked a couple of times on me. Once at the Pyrenees Enduro after a big get off that also cracked the radiator. I managed to nurse it home for a finish by convincing myself that the leaking radiator would put out any fires from the leaking tank.
One thing a hated on that tank was the left side lower forward seam, it was too sharp and would rub on my leg, if I was to make another I would try to roll the bottom edge and have the seam under the tank instead of on the corner.
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Wow, inbetween all the petty crap that goes on in here, when you knowledgeable chaps put forward these informative posts I am impressed, thanks. The older I get, the more I realize how little I know.
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If you need a custom tank talk to Scott at Scotty's choppers at Uralla NSW the guy is true artist. He has the right gear. I used to play Golf with him.
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Geoff you can buy 1.2mm sheet of 1111 in O condition here. There is a small catch is that you need to buy a tonne of.it. ;D Was only $1500 but shipping was the killer ;D Which is why I never mentioned it.
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Yes you can get anything here if you buy enough of it. I bought a mill run of structural grade extrusion that I use on my swingarms for the HL’s because it wasn’t available off the shelf here, that was a big hit on the finances around 14 -15 years ago and I am just now getting down to the last pieces of it.
But for an alloy tank you don’t need a ‘special’ grade.
If you’ve ever moved from company to company you will have found that different firms do things in different ways, Countries do things differently as well, not always in a backward or forward way but often just a sideways step. For whatever reason it appears that in the US 3003 is quite common while 5005 is common over here, no doubt they have different advantages but they will behave in a similar manner.
Don’t kid yourself that because you’ve read on a US site that something is done a particular way it can’t be done another way.
Welding gas is another prime example, TIG welding can be done with either Helium or Argon. I think from memory Helium burns a bit hotter.
Argon is the common gas in Aust. whereas I am led to believe the Helium is the common gas in the US, hence the term Heliarc. While Heliarc is actually a trade name for a brand of welder is also is used to describe a TIG weld.
I was told many years back that we use the different gases due to economics of the gas, Helium is plentiful in North America while Argon is plentiful down here.
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Don’t kid yourself that because you’ve read on a US site that something is done a particular way it can’t be done another way.
Welding gas is another prime example, TIG welding can be done with either Helium or Argon. I think from memory Helium burns a bit hotter.
Or instead of Tig you could use Oxy, haven't seen that done in a while.
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Geoff you can buy 1.2mm sheet of 1111 in O condition here. There is a small catch is that you need to buy a tonne of.it. ;D Was only $1500 but shipping was the killer ;D Which is why I never mentioned it.
[1500 that probably would be the price of a nos tank anyway that will end up with the same issues eventually , this thread has made me think outa the square some of the more tricky bits could be ground /milled ,shaped out of billet to a similar thickness then combined with the sheet aluminium mmmmmm ::)]
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I was racking my brain to think of who purchased this by the tonne and I seem to remember companies that made 'sandwich panel' for cool rooms used it some bought it in O condition so they could roll a ribbed pattern into it. Maybe hunt around the places that make that.
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Geoff, argon is far and away the most common gas for TIG here. Helium is more expensive, plus it floats away so you need more of it.
A good friend who is an ace weldor told me he keeps a small bottle of helium for when the welding heat needs a touch of "nitro" for a difficult job. But it is only hooked up on those special occasions. Another one who did a lot of welding reclamation on cylinder heads would use helium for the increased localized heat so he could minimize the heat going into the rest of the casting.
Kent White in Northern California sells (among many great metalworking products) flux for O/A welding of aluminum
http://www.tinmantech.com/html/aluminum_welding_supplies.php
I welded up an aluminum water tank for my TIG cooler using O/A and his flux. It was .125" plate and I was pleased when done as the roughly 9 feet of welds had zero porosity, which I can't always count on when I TIG. It wasn't difficult at that thickness but I have more trouble with 16g, when the porosity tends to be a matter of puddles of aluminum falling out of the bead and onto the floor. I've seen people weld .032" with O/A, but there are weldors and then there are weldors (and then there's me).
Kent has some articles that can be read here:
https://www.tinmantech.com/html/articles.php
I took a 3 day class from him at his shop about 10 years ago. He really knows his stuff and many of his videos are very helpful. I've got a couple of his Meco torches and his O/A welding lens, while expensive, does make seeing the puddle through the flux flare a non-issue.
Kent also has a lot of short videos on metalshaping/welding on YouTube. This one is a good example of why many metalshapers will do alloy panel welding with O/A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF1Srs_e1Aw
cheers,
Michael
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3003 is available from action aluminium in qld. In their catalogue anyway. Haven't asked them but will when I'm in there next
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Geoff, argon is far and away the most common gas for TIG here. Helium is more expensive, plus it floats away so you need more of it.
Okay, thanks Michael, seems I was misinformed.
I checked out the Oxy welding of the alloy sheet, the guy is obviously talented. 1.2 mm sheet can take a bit of concentration to weld.
Don’t think I will be in a hurry to learn it myself though, can’t see myself welding up alloy swingarms with the oxy.
I have heard stories of people getting around on bikes be means of peddles, can’t imagine why anyone would want to though :D
Also the modern square wave TIG has benefits of ‘cleaning’ the material making it easier to weld shitty castings etc.
One good comment was what would happen with a TIG weld if it was annealed afterwards as the oxy would have a self annealing effect while welding. I will have to give it a go one day to find out.
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Geoff, aluminum O/A doesn't make much sense to me for anything but bodywork, unless that's the only welding kit you've got falling to hand. There are good reasons why they invented TIG and it has so many positive features (though price is often not one of them). I've got a Miller 250DX and it is usually my first choice if I need to weld something. But O/A does have a niche with the panel beaters.
Kent was a restorer at the Harrah Auto Museum and I think one of the cars he did there took overall honors at the Pebble Beach concours one year. He knows his stuff, and he has put a lot of effort and thought into the tools he's developed.
One of the guys in the class I took from Kent had a hot rod shop in the midwest. He was having a horrible time with O/A alloy welding until he mentioned that he'd left his reading glasses at the hotel. I loaned him my goggles with the magnifiers in them and he immediately began welding .062" sheet as though he'd been doing it for years. It was pretty disheartening for those of use who were struggling.
I once got to try using a (large) torch running oxy/hydrogen and that seemed to be a big help. The O/H flame is cooler and it was easier to avoid overheating the metal.
As you say the broader HAZ on O/A keeps things workable which is important when there's going to be more pounding/rolling/planishing/bending being done after welding. When done by the right hands it also can be a very speedy weld vs TIG.
Every pushbike I've ridden has always been grossly underpowered. :)
cheers,
Michael
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Before I got my TIG welder (thanks Firko) I did all my aluminium welding with oxy acetylene. The advantage of using O/A, in my experience, was that you could just lift off a little when the weld area started getting too hot, whereas with the old choke style TIG welder you actually had to stop the weld and readjust the choke (no foot or hand control on those old models). I welded thin plate with mine as I have a colt system that goes down to a #6 tip that can be regulated down to a very soft flame (also used for expansion chambers). I used a slightly carburising flame with the correct flux and as Michael points out, the correct lenses in the welding goggles. It is so much easier with those lenses as there is virtually no flare and the puddle is easily distinguishable. I've welded fuel tanks, rims, silencers, cylinder and head fins that are all still in service with no apparent problems.
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Just my two cent worth. I have used 5005 H34, 1.5mm or 1.6mm in the past with good success.
It's easy to shape and It welds great.
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Did this in 81/82 , never had a clue but it worked well and never leaked.
(http://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/mike52_photo/1981%20KTM%20mx%20125lc/TheMotherShip-1.jpg) (http://s753.photobucket.com/user/mike52_photo/media/1981%20KTM%20mx%20125lc/TheMotherShip-1.jpg.html)
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Complex shapes like fuel tanks especialy after they are closed that flux is complete bitch to get off.
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it seems the more enquiries i make about product 5005 @ 1.5 mm will be the choice as to it being easlily accessable and very affordable , a great tip from huskibul about the plastic used on the front of shirt boxes for templates , it cut easy bends into shaped you can fold it and clear to mark on . the project begins
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To make a pattern I use, high strength fiber tape. First I use green masking tape. The type spray painters use.
I put it on, then the fiber tape in a crossing pattern. Remove it with a scalpel. Then I hit the sticky side with talcum powder to take the sticky away. If you are in Melbourne you can inbox me and you're welcome to come around. I still have some green tape and I think I still have some fiber tape. You could try.
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1.5mm will bend easy for you, you should be able to push it over some water pipe or similar to make a radius bend.
The tank I made was designed with CAD*
* Cardboard Aided Design