Help me JOHN KELLY you're my only hope, Tuck issue Options

[scotty b]

I'm making a seat/rear fairing for a cafe racer conversion. I folded the lip on the lower portion last night using my bead roller with tipping dies and then shrunk it to smooth it back out. My problem is at the rear where the curve gets really acute. I had 2 small tucks on the side ( see pics ) that came out fine but the one at the dead center of the apex was less then satisfying to me. Did I do something wrong on the larger one or is it just not that possible to get it smoothed out? Despite all of the metal werk I have done this is the first time I have attempted a tuck job. At this point I'm happy with the results and will fix the fold with a vouple of spot welds but what about the next time?? How can I get a smoother tuck?

Thanks

[John Kelly]

Hi Scotty,

It looks like the center tuck has very steep sides. If the sides are steep, it will fold over on itself instead of shrinking. Rick is right, that's a lot of metal to gather up. It might have worked better if you had done a smaller tuck, shrunk it down, and then done another in the same place.

Did you use an edge shrinker? I think I see some marks from shrinker jaws in the one picture. The edge shrinker makes the metal kind of stiff and perhaps brittle as well... harder to tuck shrink.

Is that a steel hammer form or the bottom of the part? You could have done that part in a hammer form. It might have been a little more controllable. Still a lot of shrinking to do the really sharp corner there though.

At this point, you could gently heat the small folds with a torch and tap them over a hard surface from the back side to straighten them out a bit.

Looks like a really nice job you are doing. The customer is lucky to have you working on their bike. If you like, I will send you a free copy of my tuck shrinking video. Just let me know. Kent White has a video entitled shrinking magic that is very interesting. His web site:

www.tinmantech.com

John www.ghiaspecialties.com