Ex-500.com - The home of the Kawasaki EX500 / Ninja 500R banner

fiberglass mid panels (edited 26 may)

4K views 21 replies 12 participants last post by  Agia 
#1 ·
here are some pics of my lil project, I am working on making some mid panels, with the ultimate goal of combining the mid panels with the lower fairing , widening it adding a vent and making each half 1 full piece, anyway here is the start. i only glassed in one side panel, gonna do the other tommorrow.



taped the mold to a flat board



I wound up doing 4 more layers after this.



and here is a little something else that i am going to work on when I have time...

 
See less See more
4
#7 ·
Re: fiberglass mid panels

When you're finished I demand you make a mold and make some more to sell us. :D Looks pretty good so far.
 
#8 ·
Re: fiberglass mid panels

I did the other side last night and finished the molds for the vents, then i ran out of fiberglass cloth, i was gonna do more tonight but got lazy. I will be doing more tommorrow if i make it to the store to buy more fiberglass. I also need to buy a new hot glue gun and some other misc stuff to help in putting it all together, the just a whole lot of sanding and finish work, then take the original part, and make a mold out of it so that I can make the whole lower section a 1 piece fiberglass part.

I actually want to try and make 2 molds the first one out of plaster which I havn't tried yet but have heard that it works wonders, and when I do the final mold I'm going to probably use 2 layers of fiberglass cloth with 2-3 layers of fiberglassed fleece over it for strength. Ive used fleece before to do custom sub enclosures but never a mold, but after talking to some friends that do alot more fiberglass work than I it should actually work better than just a 12 layer cloth mold.
 
#13 ·
Re: fiberglass mid panels

some more pics.

There is still alot of work to do, I need to shape the mid panels, and do a lot of sanding. Then do a few coats of body filler to flatten it out, prime it, sand some more, prime again, sand again, then some more stuff, sand some more and sand it a whole bunch more after that. Oh yeh did I forget to say i need to sand it a whole lot more.

the mid pannels attached to the fairing



I made some vents to let air out from behind the radiator, and also to clear the radiator.



I cuts some off to make the sides look like they belong





 
#15 ·
Re: fiberglass mid panels (edited 5 may)

I did a test fit to see where i need to fix it to make the seams close and it looks decent in it's not close to done stage. I know that I need to do another test fit before I make the mold so I'll take another picture then.
 
#16 ·
Re: fiberglass mid panels (edited 5 may)

So far I'm happy with it, except for 1 small thing... In the back of the mid panel it bowed out, not sure why but the last time I test fitted it it was only off by 1/4". I think it may have been due to the sudden change in temperature outside. I still have some tricks up my sleeve and hopefully it will hold its shape better.

I have to get cracking on this, as I destroyed my original lower yesterday.










 
#18 ·
Good stuff, Derf. Thanks for sharing. Keep it up!
 
#19 ·
Re: fiberglass mid panels (edited 5 may)

derf said:
So far I'm happy with it, except for 1 small thing... In the back of the mid panel it bowed out, not sure why but the last time I test fitted it it was only off by 1/4".
Can you build up the back end of the fairing some to give it a rolled edge for stiffness but still leave draft for pulling from the mold? Maybe then you'd need a 2 part mold.

Failing that glassing in a 1/4" foam rib will help a lot.
 
#22 ·
Love the look of it. I was tempted to invest into a full body lower fairing for my bike then I saw a full body upper fairing and got lost. The lower body would be more practical but at the same time the upper body looks so much better. Now if you were to get yours finished and it looked as good as its looking like it will then I would definatly buy one from you. Looking good. Also for your vents you should make a wired up piece to fit in there. Wont serve much purpose but seen it on Zx6r's and must say it looked great.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top