Fibreglass Cafe Seat Build

Now comes the dusty stage...body filler. I first gave the seat a nice coat of body filler just to fill in the unevenness of the fibreglass. Then once I had this smoothed out somewhat, I mixed up a milkshake (combination of body filler, fibreglass resin, mekp and body filler hardener) to coat the seat with. This mixture is a lot more fluid then ordinary body filler and so creates a nice smoother finish. Regardless, still needs to be sanded...and sanded...and sanded and then sanded again. Finally I'm happy with the look and spray a coat of primer.

Milkshake pic:

After sanding:

Couple of pics post primer and on bike:

I wanted/needed to have somewhere on the bike to store some things: tool kit, camera, phone, lunch when going to work, etc., so I decided to build a glovebox into the seat. This area wouldn't be secure, I will just need to lift the seat cushion to gain access. I just marked the underneath of the cowl to clear the frame and the cross brace, and also clear the hole I have made for the light (more on the light later). I then filled in this marked off area with green foam and glassed over it. This is the way I left it. I'll cut a hole in the seat part when I get home and remove the foam. I'll post more pics when I complete this part.

Florist Foam:

Fibreglass:

The last bit of glass work necessary is for the seat pan needed for the cushion.

Here is a pic of the wood laid out the way I wanted:

A couple of pics after some fibreglass has been laid under and above the wood.

I then did a rough trim to see how it looked on the bike. I'm mostly pleased with the pan except for the vertical part (i.e. seat back). I never got the fibreglass mat to sit down very good over the wood so its a bit high. I'll probably have to sand this down a bit and maybe lay a bit more glass. I'll finish trimming this and then start covering it when I get home next week. Still need to determine what I'm going to use to cover it, have to go out looking.

I wanted to have a small place on the bike to enable me to carry some tools, camera, lunch, etc, so I made a small glove box in the tail. I showed the glass being applied to the bottom of the tail in the last update. I have since cut the hole and removed the foam to expose the area. It was a bit rough inside due to the fibreglass, so I used a dremel to remove the sharp edges. I didn't make it totally smooth, just cleaned it up so I don't get any more fibreglass splinters in my hands. These are painful, way worse than wood.