fiber glassing!

[Handydandy]

Hey all, I am reshaping the front of my bike. what all needs to be done to fiberglass.

take down to plastics but what do you do to get the shaping/molding done. if you have pieces missing like, if you want to fab/mod something

just scroll threw the pictures and let me know what you think of what im trying to do. the link is to myspace.

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=14541228&albumID=2237813&imageID=47637246

[izzy]

The hard part will be making sure all the plastics are lined up on the bike. Are you planning on having a seam down the front or will the side fairings be connected? For appearance and strength sake, I would recommend keeping them connected.
Fiberglassing them together isn't really that hard. I did some fiberglassing on my boat this summer. I found these links helpful...

http://www.michneboat.com/Fiberglassing%20-%20101.htm

For boats, but the concepts transfer.

http://www.sportrider.com/tech/146_9510_hand/index.html

This is a good overview. See the boat link for fiberglass specific tips.

The biggest recommendation I can give though is to be prepared ahead of time, and mix the resin last. That stuff hardens in a hurry, so don't mix too much at a time. Use disposable containers because you'll never get that stuff out!

Cheers,

[Handydandy]

yeah, i tried to fiber glass it once already, and i didnt put enought of the hardener onto it. so it didnt try like it was supposed to. got all sticky.

i plan on making it one piece, for that exact reason - strength. Thanks for the sites. ill check em out.

[philwecksr]

I'm working on a fiberglass woofer box right now and my plan at this point is to build a model out of modeling foam or something similar, and then fiberglass over the top of that...

[izzy]

For your speaker box, build a light frame out of MDF and then cover it with glass. I think the heat from the epoxy might melt the foam. It gets surprisingly hot.

[philwecksr]

For your speaker box, build a light frame out of MDF and then cover it with glass. I think the heat from the epoxy might melt the foam. It gets surprisingly hot.

Thought about that but wasn't sure how to get the mdf back out of the box after the fiberglass has hardened?

[quik89Kat]

what you do for a box is buy 3/4" mdf the denser the better then you make an open sided box 4 sides and a back then get some wooden downs then make 2 rings in 10" or 12" out of mdf whatever the speaker size is ,position the dowls to hold the rings up from the open side of the box tacks for like furniture of strong hot glue works to hold the dowls and rings together.

cover the top open side of the box and rings with fleece from a craft store staple around the outside edge of the box and then cut an x in the fleece inside the speaker rings pull the fleece down through the hole tight and staple it to the inside edge of the ring trim eccess even with lower edge of rings,Then paint the fleece heavily with fiberglass resin let it cure then sand the resin down just enough to let bondo grip go over lightly with bondo to smooth out inperfections sand more then paint enjoy.

its impossible to make it out of just fiberglass and will not sound good anyway nothing for the pitches to resonate off of as fiberglass is somewhat flexible and will crack from the bass

[loudnlow7484]

what you do for a box is buy 3/4" mdf the denser the better then you make an open sided box 4 sides and a back then get some wooden downs then make 2 rings in 10" or 12" out of mdf whatever the speaker size is ,position the dowls to hold the rings up from the open side of the box tacks for like furniture of strong hot glue works to hold the dowls and rings together.

cover the top open side of the box and rings with fleece from a craft store staple around the outside edge of the box and then cut an x in the fleece inside the speaker rings pull the fleece down through the hole tight and staple it to the inside edge of the ring trim eccess even with lower edge of rings,Then paint the fleece heavily with fiberglass resin let it cure then sand the resin down just enough to let bondo grip go over lightly with bondo to smooth out inperfections sand more then paint enjoy.

its impossible to make it out of just fiberglass and will not sound good anyway nothing for the pitches to resonate off of as fiberglass is somewhat flexible and will crack from the bass

Using hot glue is great to stilt the rings up, because then you can use a heat gun to take the dowels back out. I never did the whole pulling the fleece down in the middle of the ring thing. I would resin all the way to about 2 inches inside the ring, and just router it out flush to the ring. And fleece with resin is not enough.... unless you're planning on running no more than 100 watts or so! You absolutely have to reinforce from the inside with chopped mat, or my personal favorite- a concoction of resin, sawdust, and lots of short fiberglass strands (just use shears to cut up chopped mat into small pieces, it will come apart in the resin).....

Just as an example..... this box was only holding something like 400 watts on the subs, but I built it up to about 1/2-3/4" thick all around..... (On my old shop-owner's truck, where each sub was taking 1200 watts RMS, the box was about 1" thick all around)

its impossible to make it out of just fiberglass and will not sound good anyway nothing for the pitches to resonate off of as fiberglass is somewhat flexible and will crack from the bass

The box above is strictly fiberglass..... the bottom of it is a mold of the floor made of chopped mat, and the top is a fleece stretch off of that mold. the only other materials are the wood for the rings, two small strips of wood to screw the amp to, and a piece of PVC pipe that the cables run through......

[Handydandy]

Guess i need to install a sub box on the front end of my motorcycle! Kidding

[izzy]

I'm sure there's someone out there who's put a sub under their seat...