It takes a lot of time, patience, and skill to fabricate custom motorcycle parts from scratch—but luckily, 46 Works and Shiroh Nakajima have absolute buckets full of those things. Currently, Nakajima is working on a Moto Guzzi LeMans 1000 custom job for M, and there’s a full playlist of all the videos in this series that is going up on his YouTube page.
This is the fourth video in the series, so it’s early days yet on the complete build—but if you love machinist workshop ASMR videos, then it’s hard to find a better place to hang out than on the 46 Works YouTube channel. In this specific video, Nakajima hand-crafts an aluminum tank for the LeMans project out of plain old aluminum sheet metal.
While there’s plenty of folding and forming involved, it’s made of multiple pieces—not just one or two big ones. First, he tackles the base—which is two pieces, cut and bent and shaped just so. He then welds them together so they’ll sit nicely on the frame where he wants them. There’s a little leftover aluminum at the edges, so some careful measuring, and marking is done while the base is on the bike. That way, the cutting will turn out just right to make the finished product.
After that, it’s time for some cardboard-aided design—first crafting the top curve of the tank. Then, Nakajima uses the template to cut out and begin shaping the same thing out of aluminum. Lots of hammersmith and wheel work later, and he has the exact shape he wants. Then, it’s on to the side panels—which require more templating, hammering, wheel work, and plenty of other fine adjustments before he can approach welding it all together.
The whole time, he’s got earbuds in his ears—which, in our opinion, is one of the best ways to get just about anything done. It helps you concentrate, it keeps the loud noises out of your ears (well, depending on your earbud choice), and it makes even the experiences you already enjoy so much better. His playlist must be unbelievable, though—because look at the magic he’s creating with his hands.
By the end of this video, he’s ready to consider what kind of graphics he wants to apply to the finished tank. While he starts roughing it in with a marker after he’s welded the structural bits together, all that will be saved for the next video in the series. We can’t wait to see how this project turns out.
