Cutting Fairings

[89AZKat]

Since I havent been able to find a decent set of uppers for my 89 Kat at a reasonable price, I was thinking of modding them a little bit.

What happened was that the previous guy that owned my bike used it as a track bike and dumped it on both sides. The right is the worse out of the set. I was wondering if anybody had cut that bump that sticks out the most.

[MadKatter]

Pics?

[fireman1724]

[kwebbel]

I guess you mean the bump over the ignitioncover? seen that before looks good too.

[89AZKat]

Yea the ignition cover and Starter cover. Most of the one on the right fairing is made of bondo and i'd like to get rid of that.

[BlackKatnWV]

i got lost after reading "used as a track bike" lol

[89AZKat]

I think i know what your thinking.

[Black_peter]

Be careful. Remember you can't go back.
I fooled around with my fairings and even thought they weren't in great shape I should have sold them...

That having been said:
A cheap coping saw works great on the ABS.. Goes through like butter and you can cut small corners.
Tin snips will cut the plastic well but leave little splits.

[kain101]

i got a kat that "used to be a track bike" not sure how effective it was on the track though

[joeyz34]

Be careful. Remember you can't go back.
I fooled around with my fairings and even thought they weren't in great shape I should have sold them...

That having been said:
A cheap coping saw works great on the ABS.. Goes through like butter and you can cut small corners.
Tin snips will cut the plastic well but leave little splits.

hrm... do you think a coping saw would be better than a dremel like tool?

the bike i got came with recently repaired and paitned fairings, but i also got my hands on two sets of more beat up fairings, so i was thinking i'd take the nice ones off and hold onto them incase i want to try and go back to stock, then chop up the crappier set

[Black_peter]

hrm... do you think a coping saw would be better than a dremel like tool?

Rotary tools tend to clog up. You can cut a fairing in half with a 4" cut off wheel but you have to move fast. A coping saw goes through a fairing pretty dang fast and they are really cheap!
You get a lot of melting with rotary cutters.

[chinto]

You get a lot of melting with rotary cutters.

+1 on that. The rotary tools, particularly ones like a dremmel that uses a very small cutting disk ends up generating so much heat that you are melting the plastics as as much as you are cutting them. Never tried cutting with a coping saw, but I'm guessing it's far better than a dremmel.

[joeyz34]

+1 on that. The rotary tools, particularly ones like a dremmel that uses a very small cutting disk ends up generating so much heat that you are melting the plastics as as much as you are cutting them. Never tried cutting with a coping saw, but I'm guessing it's far better than a dremmel.

cool... but i was gonna use one of these:



probably go get a coping saw and try both... those should be cheap

[Black_peter]

Ohhh that's a whole different matter.

That should work really well!!
I thought you were using one of these:

[GytRDunKat]

To err on the side of being naive, wtf is that thing? Is the base the cutting tool?