Pretend British guy totally new to shaping

[Liander]

Hi All!

My name is Timothy and I live in Belper, Derbyshire. Despite my very british name and living in a very british town I'm actually from Milan, Italy (please don't ask about the Barcellona match, I'm an AC Milan fan...).

The reason why I would like to be a member is that I have decided that I want to turn this:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_Pj...ptV05hWUk/edit

into something like this:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_Pj...BtMlM3LWc/edit

While the fairings will be built out of carbon fibre (anyone has a vacuum pump I can borrow? ), I want to fabricate the fuel tank and the rear fairing out of aluminium.

I have some good experience welding/brazing non-ferrous materials and machining metals in general (I'm a member of the Nottingham Hackspace where they have a myford lathe and are currently in the process of rebuilding a bridgeport mill, can't wait!) so hopefully that will help.

I have done a bit of research and would like to do the shrinking (hope it's right) by using the leather bag (that I will make myself) technique and then planishing using dollies and a steel slapping spoon. I don't have easy access to a tree stump and don't think they would be too happy at the hackspace if I started filling the floor with massive logs!

I will be brazing the parts together as I don't like MIG welding on aluminium and don't have access to a TIG welder.

Hopefully, with the material available on the site and a bit of help from the members, I'll achieve my goal in time to use the bike when warmer weather arrives.

Looking forward to it!

Cheers