Making fibreglass fairings?

[Joe Blogs]

Am I wasting my time trying to make fiberglass race fairings for my new bike or should I just buy some??

How hard is it to make molds off of original body work without wrecking original body work?

How much will it cost for materials for making fairings?

Let me know if anyone can help on the matter

Cheers
JB

[imdying]

Given that you have to ask, I'm guessing that you've never done it before. In that case, my advice would be to make nothing that you can buy. Composites are messy, time consuming, and require a number of tools and chemicals, all of which takes dollars.

I'd encourage you to try something a little less complicated for you first project... you'll need less raw materials etc, and you can take your time etc.

[LilSel]

I'd also say just buy some :) prob save yourself alot of time & money in the long run (if something didnt quite go right)

[R6_kid]

Frenchy made his own for his R1. He's pretty handy with the stuff, but do it properly takes A LOT of time, and you'll end up with a mold at the end which you probably won't use again = 'waste'. He said after all the time and hassle it took he would be buying his next set. He ended up selling the mould to someone else. Which brings me to my next point...

If you can get hold of a mold for the fairings you want to make, then it could be a fun project.

Otherwise, just buy em - then have fun repairing them if the need arises!

[imdying]

An alternate point of view is that having the moulds would be handy if you're racing... you wreck, you just put them back in the mould and lay some more glass.

Still a lot of mucking about though.

[racerhead]

I work in the marine industry and use fibreglass fairly often and its messy and time consuming to work with.

About 2 years ago I made a mould for a seat unit on a gsxr and to make the mould alone took 7-8 hours labour by the time I had removed the plastics, smoothed out the joins with plastecine and waxed it up then had to coat in gelcoat wait overnight for that to dry then apply 2 layers of fibreglass and wait another 5 hours before I could attach some strenghtening ribs. So over all it was 2 days before I was even ready to start making the actual copys.

Then to make the copys it was another 5-6 hours by the time they were laid up and then when dried some light sanding.

The mould was only ever used to make 2 seat units and has been in storage since.

Only for this been for a friend and I didnt mind spending time doing it I would go out and buy race fairings.
After making some myself I think the price of race fairings is pretty cheap for the amount of work needed to produce them.

[Joe Blogs]

Thanks for your comments, where would you recommend buying fairings from, I've checked out tyga and just fairings is there anywhere else?

[Coyote]

I'm in the middle of making a basic plug for my bucket racer:
http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/showthread.php?t=86892

I'll let you know how that goes. It's already been a fair bit of effort. Not a lot of money yet. I'm currently on KB whilst waiting for bog to dry. The tail is looking good, tank has a bit to go.

I've only done a bit of fibreglassing in the past when I was at school. Sure it's a bit messy, but I was really satisfied with the end result (a toy Le Mans-ish style car).

In saying that, I probably wouldn't go into such effort to replicate stock fairings. A set from Just Fairings will be much easier and probably cheaper. Definitely worth all the work if you're making your own thing. It's great to finally see something in 3D I've been drawing on paper for ages, and it'll be great once it's finished.

The next creation will be more advanced. I'm more imaginative than what the current project might make me seem.

[The Pastor]

Im making a headlight fairing for my streetfighter project, for a mold i used the old fairing. Completely rooted teh paint, but paint is cheap.