Carbon Fiber Bodywork

....taking to the range sunday.

Ahhhhh, semi-automatic firearms and carbon fiber..... go hand in hand don't they? :laugh: Reminds me of a store I saw once: "Guns-Tobacco-Diamonds"

As for the viability of the tail mold, I still need to work on patching it up. I'll want to run a part through it at least once to see how it turns out. Then I'll decide whether to remake the mold or keep this one. I was brainstorming on the way home (got rained out on the job) on ways to speed up the mold making process, anticipating remaking the tail mold, as well as the left sidecover. To be perfectly honest, I may end up redoing the tank top mold as well. There are some things I could have done better, and I'd like to incorporate the gas cap into the mold as well.

has anyone ever tried making a complete body set out of hundred dollar bills ?

trianglelaguna wrote:

has anyone ever tried making a complete body set out of hundred dollar bills ?

Thats pretty much what I'm doing Craig! :laugh:

trianglelaguna wrote:

has anyone ever tried making a complete body set out of hundred dollar bills ?

just gotta love craig :kiss: !

leon

Adam, that'd be an awesome idea! Put down a layer of epoxy, then hundred dollar bills, then the CF!!

you know the 914 crowd...

Wow, that's one crazy way to make a VW trike :blink: Now, if he had my drive train, I don't think I could keep up with him on my Kz :woohoo:

It looked better before the Goldwing was attached

testarossa wrote:

You may not wind up needing this but you do have some options for epoxy filler to control the viscosity. I have personally used the wood flower listed here: boatbuildercentral.com/products.php?cat=13

It creates a mixture with the consistency of peanut butter. The stuff generally stays in place fairly well, unless you are trying to get it to stick upside down. You may not want sawdust in your molds, but you might try silica or micro-balloons.

I meant to reply to your post Josh, I just kept getting distracted :whistle:

I have both fumed silica and microballons, both of which are resin thickeners. You are right, I don't think sawdust would make for the best mold surface The problem with using the thickeners is the texture of the resin changes. It becomes much more coarse, usually with more entrapped air. This also would not make for a good mold surface texture, even after sanding since I don't think it would take a polish very well. I could use a thicker epoxy, but the stuff I have has an ultra slow cure hardener, and I'm impatient! :laugh: I'll get more of that mold patched up today, as well as make some tank mounts. If I break out the space heater, I might even get the tail mold patched up enough to try a layup in it. Today's a rain day, so no field work.

Blah blah blah, more about guns and trikes! Jk, glad we're back on topic.

After a fun filled Friday night partying at my little brothers (no relation) moms wedding reception, I had him over to spend some quality garage time. Apparently I'm a bad influence on him as well as Stu Pidasole, since he now wants to mod his minibike with a monoshock swingarm :blink: I told him I would help him, but he was gonna have to do most of the work himself (he's 13). So while I had him running beads on 1/4" plate with my mig, I worked on my tail mold. Same old routine - mix some epoxy, add graphite powder. I had already gone through and opened up all the pinholes and bubbles I could find, then I dabbed the epoxy around the areas that were the worst. I used a customized bondo squeegee to spread it around and force the resin into all the pinholes. It worked out pretty good with the exception of the larger bubbles that didn't get filled in as much as I wanted. I'll sand excess down and see how it looks. Maybe I'll give it another coat, maybe I'll just try it out and see how a part will look :woohoo: