a much anticipated SR500 gas tank

i have had a very patient customer waiting on the tank for his almost finished SR500 project.
it's the same guy that i recently did the SR frame for.
i have had mucho personal shit going on lately so had to delay the start of this one but i got the TIG and a small arsenal of metal working tools fired up this week and have put no less than a few days into this thing so far.
no wonder no one does aftermarket 'chopper' tanks to fit the SR frame, it is incredible how tedious fitting this to the back bone and seat rails was.
I started with a narrowed sporty shell from my good buddy Jay Roche aka Special79'.
I hammer formed the tunnel around some 3" schedule 120 since i have no way to roll a 3" tunnel in the shop.

 started in with the cope for the tunnel in the shell and started working the bent tunnel to the oil in frame backbone...cut, shape, grind, repeat..about a hundred more times and this is what we have.

a couple of tack welds to get everything together and a few hours of shaping and coping the shell to fit the tunnel reliefs.

almost everything laid out and ready for some tig magic, just need to cut the templates out of some 16 gauge and go fill my argon bottle and it's time for some final welding/clean up.
i am super pleased with how this is coming out and i cant wait to see it on the finished bike.