When I last posted the last picture was of sheet of plastic with my cardboard pattern lying on it. After tracing around it with a marker I used my bandsaw and a Dremel to cut it out to shape. Be certain when cutting plastic with any high speed rotary tool the you use either a saw blade or the router attachment. Do not under any circumstances try to use a metal cutoff wheel for plastic and of course always wear eye protection.

This next step involves extremely high heat, possible hot metal & molten plastic. It is your responsibility to take all reasonable precautions to see that you don’t get hurt.

The first piece to get bent is the lower brace. It will get reshaped even more later but for now let’s just bend it to a nice 90 degree angle. First you clamp it into a vise sandwiched between a couple of metal angles and start heating it.

When it gets warm it will bend very easily. To get a really good square corner take a slab of wood or another piece of metal and press down on the corner and hold it for a minute as it cools.

After this I bent the tabs in for the sides. These tabs my not really be necessary but I like the security of having large bonding surfaces to hold parts like this together, especially in a high vibration environment like a motorcycle.

Bending the sides up to form the box takes a little more thought. If you have enough equipment and desire absolute perfection you should carefully clamp each corner to be folded and follow the procedures shown above. In the interest of time and since this motorcycle is going to be another deliberate neo-rat, I simply heated the plastic along the bend lines until it was bendable and then used two blocks of wood to form it to shape. Hey it works for me.

Before moving on to the next step you will need to test the fit and make sure that your battery fits properly. At this point you can reheat the plastic and adjust things somewhat, once you glue everything together it’s not so easy

When you glue it together be sure to use plenty of ABS cement. Do not use any other type of cement with ABS plastic.

One of the nicer things about working with ABS is that the cement is very thick and you can use it as a gap filler to seal off cracks and imperfections and then sand it down after it all dries.

Here is a quick shot of it in the frame with the bottom brace glued into place. At this point the battery box is pretty well done except for sanding and painting.

The next steps for Project Wammo is going to be a complete teardown to the bare frame to finish removing all the unwanted tabs & finish up the welding. Then it’ll go back together as a roller with new bearings, fork seals, brakes, tires, etc. Then it will be time to freshen up the engine & paint the sucker. Stick around & enjoy the fun.