Painfull hours......

Body work is the most painful part of motorcycle building. I think that's why you see so few efforts in this department outside of manufacturers and the handful of masochists offering one-off hammer-formed  fairings. It is also a design exercise more subject to a proper, and often public critique, than a bike which might just be a creative assembly of parts which might include bullets, sharp pointy things, or antique bathroom hardware. This critique, bound to happen at least more than once, will need to be taken with a grain of salt by the designer as the rules of streamlining set in many racing categories define the start stopping point of fenders, fairings, and seat/tail sections. So while there may be a a reason for every turn, radius and edge in your design it may just fall on deaf ears as this tends to also be a subjective kind of thing. Now onto more bodywork discussion.

Here is the nosecone ready to be prepped for glass work. Note; Having previously mentioned that body filler works poorly on this soft carving foam, i did use some body filler here to build up a low spot. It sort of worked but the transition from filler to foam is a bit bumpy. Not much i can do with the foam being so soft but this will result in less filler on the fibreglass parts in the end. The body parts are a constant juggling of time, cost, weight and performance.

There are no photos of nosecone bagging or prep, i find it difficult to stop and take photos sometimes, just this shot of the finished fiberglass nose on the left side of the table upside down. We had just completed molding in the fender to make it all one piece to help keep things more slippery and to keep salt out of my face while riding. It seems there is a turbulence or maybe a vacuum occuring between the nose and the fender when they are separate parts thus creating a salt storm inside the nose while at speed. Hoping this uniting of the nose and fender resolves this. As you can see its tough to keep things orderly during the wet layup process.

The center section of the bodywork will need to support my weight with my knees and toe of my boots touching down on the thinner section which I call the running board. This is the thinner rib near the bottom of the part. If you look closely this foam rib is a separate piece held in place with hot glue and will not be prepped like the rest of the buck, so it cleanly seperates from the fibreglass part, rather it will live with the finished glass part so we have some structure where all the weight will be. Does that make sense?

Lay-up complete and vacuum on for the right hand side of the center section. Once complete we will flip it over to layup the left hand side. In the end the left hand side and right hand side will screw to each other through mating holes in the chassis.

The right hand side of the center section getting fitted to the chassis. I have added the 1/8" thick foam to the back of the part to gain a little strength here and there. The bulge on the running board is clearance for the expansion chamber.

Right hand center section as seen from the other side. The white material is resin mixed with micro balloons to give the resin some thickness without it getting heavy. I used it to seal off the foam running board inner edge and help give me a smoother sand-able area where the left hand side will be fitted up and massaged to fit well. That's all for now, final fitment and paint in the next post.