Fabrication Begins

The first thing I wanted to fabricate for this project was a new mounting bracket to replace the one that came with the tank and seat I bought from BCR.  I'm sure Benjie's bracket would work just fine if the bolt holes in it actually lined up with the holes on the frame (which they don't), but like the tank and seat, it is a little rough in the details.

The BCR mounting bracket.  The bolt holes are a good 1/4" off.

I cut my bracket from a single piece of 12 ga. steel sheet rather than welding together pieces of  1/8" flat bar like the BCR bracket.  This obviously is a little more time consuming but the end result is much better looking.  Ultimately it took me 3 attempts before getting one that I was happy with.  In the first one the mounting holes were a bit crooked and I cut the second one a little too short.  Fortunately these botched pieces gave me something to practice the bends on  before putting the final one in the vise.

I still have a little more work to do, such as adding a spot for the seat tab to slide into but I think it looks pretty solid so far.  I should add that this is the first time I've ever worked with metal so I'm sure there are better ways of accomplishing this but with my limited experience and tools this is what worked for me.

I marked out the measurements in Sharpie on the sheet metal.

Cutting a straight line with a jigsaw is slow going at best.

I used a 7/8" step bit to create the curved corners.

I cleaned up the rough edges with a grinder.

This angle wasn't too difficult to get right.

The angles of the "wings" took a few attempts.

The bracket with the excess material trimmed off.

All mounted up.