Doctorot's '78 KZ1000 build

I have been wet-sanding the sidecovers and tail for the last 3 weeks trying to get them close to perfect. sand, wash, spray, repeat. this is the aftermath. notice the dead spot in the grass forming from the amount of time i have spent in front of these tables.

seriously. there comes a point when you have to say "fuck it, these are good enough" which i did a couple days ago. i built up flanges around them with plastalina clay, and folders, everything is covered with packing tape. Paying very close attention to assure they is adequate draft, with no undercuts. follow up with 3 coats of mold wax, then a good coat of PVA.

and BOOM, first layer of tooling gel coat. more to follow.

DoctoRot wrote: I have been wet-sanding the sidecovers and tail for the last 3 weeks trying to get them close to perfect. sand, wash, spray, repeat. this is the aftermath. notice the dead spot in the grass forming from the amount of time i have spent in front of these tables.

seriously. there comes a point when you have to say "fuck it, these are good enough" which i did a couple days ago. i built up flanges around them with plastalina clay, and folders, everything is covered with packing tape. Paying very close attention to assure they is adequate draft, with no undercuts. follow up with 3 coats of mold wax, then a good coat of PVA.

and BOOM, first layer of tooling gel coat. more to follow.

Crazy shit! Commendable but too much work for me. The fibreglass work and paint has sunk the most time in my build.. Something that is still bugging me.

molds are mostly finished. popped the plugs out today, they came out unscathed which is good because im gonna use them to build up the plugs for the sidecovers to run with the airbox. I need to refine the molds and get them ready to be laid up. I guess i didn't allow the PVA to dry fully causing a bit of gator skin to form in small parts of the molds. :pinch: So im gonna try and repair them rather than starting over which is what i should do according to the guys at Fiberlay, but im $125 into these molds and i don't have much to loose except time at this point. worse come to worse ill remake the molds. hopefully not.....

heres a close up of the "gator skin" in the mold.

i fixed up the molds best i could and i think they will work fine. slowly working a bit each night. one sidecover bagged, one to go... and a tailpiece.

Resin Injection is so awesome! I hope to get back into it. So expensive to mess up though, which is holding me back from getting better. I bought all the stuff to do it and then realized when I had no more stuff with no good molds or parts...I have no more money. haha

I hope that the resin infusion processes becomes as at home in the garage as a welder, I love it so much! haha You get to choose almost any cloth material which also allows for choices in color or pattern and if the part isn't painted than you get to showcase your creative fabric choice. I resin infused a piece of denim...It wasn't very strong but it looked cool

I can't wait to see what this turns into

its not resin infusion. i just lay it up and then vacuum bag it to remove extra resin and compress the layers. I thought about doing resin infusion but on parts as simple as mine its not really needed. when you start doin really large or complex parts its definitely a must. and yeah its is stupid expensive for materials. but hey its custom.

Im happy with the way my molds/side-covers turned out. So now its time i turn my attention to making the side covers i plan to run with the airbox.

Im going to use the plugs I used for the shorty covers as the building blocks for the plugs. I got the carbs back on and the airbox in place and started the long stare. Im a bit confused as to how i should proceed. Since I raised the subframe the cover needs to go much higher, but the airbox is still in its stock position, pretty low. I want them to overlap, but that means im going to have to make the side-cover massive. Now im thinking about just running this set of covers and just letting the airbox sit like that with the frame exposed. I already added some fiberglass to the airbox to extend its shape to help bride the gap over the frame.
also that chunk of foam is just a mockup for the seat so i can have some visual weight when designing the covers.

any suggestions? im stuck on this.

Love it! Subscribed!

Can you shape the glass you added to the box so it curves up to smooth the transition into the cover? It looks like it is almost there. Do that and a low gloss finish on the box and it will disappear I am thinking. Looking great,
Wayne

Another thought. Can you remove the airbox with the extension on ot?
Wayne

Could you add to the existing mold (which could understandably cause some grief) and have it so the side panel bridged the forward down tube and tied into the airbox? It would remove as usual, so the box would be center, right, left. It could have some screen (V-Max intake style, but, you know, usable and consistent with the KZ side cover angles :lol: .

It looks like you are doing some awesome work!