Fibreglassing expertise needed

[bogan]

did a rough sand then primer coat today, brought up a lot of surface imperfections to bog up. And will hopefully provide a bit more for the paint to stick to after the final sand, as I doubt it'd stick to the plastic very well without roughing it up a bit. Looks like the exhaust grill needs to go leftwards a few mm, then make brake/indicator lights for it, and also make some covers for the side intake vents. The fit isn't perfect, but am going to recover the seat anyway, and need to trim it up when I do anyway. The seat also pivot at the back and lifts at the front to remove, which is why I couldn't go flush to the cowl there, a bit more seat foam will sort it.

[ducatilover]

Looks choice bro!

[bogan]

So to wrap up this thread, I got a pic of the finished bit of cowl fibreglassing (still got to make a brake light and vent fanciness, but that'll go in my other thread).

My review on the process:

Plastic outer shells make it very easy to get the right shape. I used mdf in a cnc mill then shaped with builders bog, but if you don't have a cnc making the mold by hand wouldn't be too hard either.

Was a fairly deep draw for the vacuum molder, so had to trim and bog in places. The machine was also not big enough to do the part in one go, so had 7 bits to glue together.

Sticking the plastic together wasn't too bad, but a lot of sanding and bogging around the joins, if it was doable in one go in the vacuum former this would have been ridiculously easy.

The molded plastic came out with a very smooth finish and really only needed the bits around the mold holes sanded, and a light sand so the paint will stick.

One layer of CSM under the plastic gives plenty of strength, bit of a bastard to get it to all lie flat when the resin was setting, but did a good enough job that I didn't bother with a cloth layer. Will look into vacuum bagging for the next one I think.

[ducatilover]

Looks good dude, matt black is the shit.