Slow Monster rebuild

[350TSS]

As usual, two steps forward one backwards and one stupid mistake which I am pretty sure I have got away with.
I brush gel coated a number of moulds using 20% thinned resin and realised that they needed a second coat as the brush striations exposed the mould itself. Unfortunately I think I put the second coat on too early and on about half of them the first gel coat blistered so they all had to be stripped back. Luckily I decided to do it before the gel coat had completely hardened and it came off relatively easily, like peeling off cling film.
The stupid mistake was that I realised as I put the third of four CF laminations down that I had made the tank filler insert mould the wrong way round, I had made it female and I should have made it male. The 2 consequences of this are a) the smooth gel coated side was pointing down into the tank, not too much of an issue because with the filler cap on it cannot really be seen; and b) each lamination I put on increased the chance that the filler cap would not fit inside the insert. I decided to stop at three laminations and put the fourth on the inside of the tank. When it had cured I split it from the mould and checked that the filler fitted which it did just – phew.
I am now worrying that a number of moulds are “wrong way round” or will not fit where they are supposed to or will not hold the thing they were designed for.
Here is my very first carbon fibre component, the back half of the engine breather /chain oiler reservoir which came out quite well, a few surface imperfections and some aberrations in the weave.


This was then trimmed to fit into the front half of the mould. I stuck masking tape around the edge to give me a line to cut to with the Dremel and 40mm cutting disc.



Today I laid up a) the battery box which was an absolute swine as the CF mat would not bend to the convoluted shape; b) the headlamp inner ring which will be bonded to the shell so as to have something to screw the bezel to, obviously the centre will have to be cut out to allow the lens to fit inside the shell and c) the final inner lamination on the tank insert.
take me to the nearest open gas station

The lower headlamp bracket came out cosmetically challenged and unfortunately I had to destroy the mould to get it out so I cannot make another, I will tidy it up and paint it.

[350TSS]

Death of a thousand cuts and a new approach to split moulds
Yesterday I thought I would separate the battery box from its mould, I knew I was in for a struggle because of the convoluted shape and the inability to highly polish the mould. Worse, when laying up the CF, it would not conform to the shape and consequently there were lots of raggedy CF ends. When coated in cured epoxy resin these ends become hard and are very sharp, they also break off into splinters.
Two hours into splitting the box from the mould I had about 20 fine and irritatingly painful cuts and the same number of splinters it then dawned on me that this was never going to come off in one piece. If I did get it off in one piece the mould was obviously a failure and would have to be re-made, unfortunately I could not foresee a method of making it without the sharp contours the existing mould had, the battery is rectangular and to hold it securely one needs a shape that conforms to the battery.
Thinking laterally, I could get it off if the mould was split so I put it under my chop saw which split it very satisfactorily – see below:

find the nearest shell gas station
The two parts of CF came off the mould very easily and were then glued back together with super glue. The finish does not matter in this location so the two halves will have about 4 layers of CF bandage applied across the split and I think that will work.
I tried the glued together battery box on the frame as I was worried that I had lost the thickness of the saw from the part but this was not a problem. I did however realised that since making the original pattern I had welded some washers to the frame to secure the air scoops and provide supports for the wiring harness and this will require 2 x 8mm slots being cut in the CF.

[jerry]

£forward 4 backwards is similar to my mate Petes mega HD 1976 superglide project , he has built 26 classy HD bikes over last 40 years and fixed dozens of other classic HDs so he know a thing or 2 ,, but thsi Superglide is being a real pigheaded hassle its his magnum opus and he has thrown every thing he ever dreamed of in a bike at it it looks gorgeous and really trick,,, BUT we are having nighmares with it ,, its in my workshop which Pete now shares,, im happy as he has shedloads odf tools and gear lathes, welders ,and so much more ,and we have been mates since school ,, but the bike is pissing us off we got its started nd it ran well for 10 miles then it destroyed its pistons ,, seem the carb was wrong spec its a lectron ,, they sent us a replacement they are a £600 a shot and we rebored the bareels with another set of wiseco pistons but we also noticed the oil pump pressure light wont go out now ,, it did before ,,, ??????? also its a bitch to start on the kicker ,, pete does not like electric starters even though he is virtually chair bound!!!! and i cant kick it over cos im an old git ,,and it has a magneto which is a morris rare earth magneto and lobs out fat sparks but we are reticent to start it anyway until we cn be sure the damn oil pump is feeding and returning propely and sending oil to the heads ,, its going to the crank ??????

Pete has built some very nice specials over the years ,, his last bike was a HD magnum which is a iron sportster heads barrels and head on a old wlc 750cc 45 flathead bottom end makeit 1000cc

fitted with a quaife norton 5 spped box it could hit 120mph instead of 65mph that the old 3 speed flathead was limited to,, he also fitted a Nitros oxide kit which was a total loony idea ut it worked a charm and freaked a lot of Ducati and big jap bike people out it was also a hard tail ..ouch

he know his stuff also fixes old norton commandos ,, but this present project is proving for what is a 80% standard bike to be a totall brain F**XKKS

jsut goes to show nothing is simple even old HDs



seems ther were 22 different possible types of oil pumps and no HD guru even the old timer is clear on which one is correct ,, even Pete wheo has rebuilt Shovels, pans ,knuckles and flatheads of every type ,, he hates any HD made after 1984 evo, and twin cams and big 8s etc ha ha ,, although he loves Kwak Zeds and ZZrs and he like ducatis although none are big enough for him at 35 stone ,,,,,,

we are tearing our hair out as money or technical ingenuity is no object yet the bike just refuses to co-operate ,, ha ha

[jerry]

2 forward 4 backwards is similar to my mate Petes mega HD 1976 superglide project , he has built 26 classy HD bikes over last 40 years and fixed dozens of other classic HDs so he know a thing or 2 ,, but this Superglide is being a real pigheaded hassle its his Magnum Opus and he has thrown every thing he ever dreamed of in a bike at it it looks gorgeous and really trick,,, BUT we are having nighmares with it ,, its in my workshop which Pete now shares,, im happy as he has shedloads of tools and gear lathes, welders ,and so much more ,and we have been mates since school ,, but the bike is pissing us off we got its started and it ran well for 10 miles then it destroyed its pistons ,, seem the carb was wrong spec its a lectron ,, they sent us a replacement they are a £600 a shot and we rebored the barrels with another set of wiseco pistons but we also noticed the oil pump pressure light wont go out now ,, it did before ,,, ??????? also its a bitch to start on the kicker ,, pete does not like electric starters on HDs even though he is virtually chair bound!!!! and i cant kick it over cos im an old git ,,and it has a magneto which is a morris rare earth magneto and lobs out fat sparks but we are reticent to start it anyway on the rolling road or down the hill until we cn be sure the damn oil pump is feeding and returning propely and sending oil to the heads ,, its going to the crank ??????

Pete has built some very nice specials over the years ,, his last bike was a HD magnum which is a iron sportster heads barrels and head on a old wlc 750cc 45 flathead bottom end makeit 1000cc

fitted with a quaife norton 5 speed box it could hit 130mph instead of 65mph that the old 3 speed flathead was limited to,, he also fitted a Nitros oxide kit which was a total loony idea ut it worked a charm and freaked a lot of Ducati and big jap bike people out it was also a hard tail ..ouch

he know his stuff also fixes old norton commandos ,and Kwak engines , but this present project is proving for what is a 80% standard bike to be a totall brain F**XKKS

jsut goes to show nothing is simple even old HDs



seems ther were 22 different possible types of oil pumps and no HD guru even the old timers in USA is clear on which one is correct ,, even Pete who has rebuilt Shovels, pans ,knuckles and flatheads of every type ,, he hates any HD made after 1984 evo, and twin cams and latest Big 8s etc ha ha ,, although he loves Kwak Zeds and ZZrs and he like ducatis although none are big enough for him at 35 stone ,,,,,,

we are tearing our hair out as money or technical ingenuity is no object yet the bike just refuses to co-operate ,, ha ha

[350TSS]

Some progress over the last couple of days, the battery tray is repaired and is miles away from being a thing of beauty but given where it sits I think it can stay as it is, subject only to a) a little bit of tweaking where it currently clashes with the infill panels b) some adjustment to enable access to the common earth post (horn mounting) and c) the bonding in of some metal mesh to act as part of a Faraday cage on the part of the tray that covers the Ignitech enclosure.


The tool tray came out just OK, I was hoping for better. It is just on the cusp of not being good enough to warrant making another, I will spend as much time repairing it as making a new one, but obviously the new one may not be any better than the first. It sits under the seat and the bits that are less than perfect are hidden by the frame tubes so maybe I will leave it until I see how much CF I have left after all the other bits are produced.

I am probably expecting too much for my first few CF components to be perfect.
The first infill panel will definitely have to be re-made as it is on display around the head stock and the gel coat is full of imperfections. It does however fit nicely, clicking into place around the smaller diameter support tube to the head stock.
nationwide bank near me


I wish I had put more thought into how these bits and pieces will be assembled as I now realise that putting the wiring in behind the infill panels and getting the battery box and the ignitech enclosure all positioned will be a bit of a nightmare. The loom to the head lamp and instrument cluster will have to pass through this right hand infill panel.
Still nobody said it was going to be easy

[350TSS]

I spent a few hours yesterday considering why my first few attempts at CF moulding had not been a total rip roaring success. The following is pure conjecture but I think I may have uncovered the root cause. Time and alteration of technique will tell.
The failures, apart from a few minor surface imperfections in the gel coat, have been where the epoxy resin and the first layer of CF has failed to closely adhere to the gel coat leaving a cloudy, milky looking air bubble, the gel coat is therefore unsupported and very weak. The first and subsequent layers of CF have not followed the contour of the mould.
I have been using 2 grades of CF mat, the very fine fibred expensive and very difficult to work with loosely woven and very shiny type and the cheaper “black stuff” which is much more tightly woven, easy to cut as it maintains its weave pattern but is quite stiff while laminating and extremely difficult to make conform to complex contours in a mould. To date my technique has been to first put down a layer of epoxy resin followed by one lamination of the expensive stuff followed immediately by another layer of resin and then by the black stuff. Using a roller on the expensive stuff is problematic as it can snag the weave and distort it. Consequently I have been using the roller, to the extent possible given the contours of the mould, after and between subsequent laminations of the black stuff.
I am pretty sure the separation between the gel coat and the first layer of CF is not for want of stippling but rather because the adherence to the gel coat is weaker than to the second layer of CF, the black stuff. This despite being thoroughly wetted with epoxy resin is too stiff to take the sharper contours and drags the first layer away from the mould.
I think I have two possible alterations to technique that could resolve the issue
1. Only use the expensive CF mat on complex moulds
2. Allow the first lamination to set before applying any subsequent laminations of the black stuff and accept that in complex moulds there will be a degree of separation and loss of strength where I do so.
I share this for anyone mad enough to contemplate having a go at making their own CF parts.
Despite the problems of the past few days I really do now feel optimistic and energised to complete this project, progress is happening and whilst there are a number of difficult issues to solve (successfully bonding the two halves of the petrol tank together for one), they do not seem to be overwhelming in complexity or number.

[utopia]

Is it worth considering using the expensive carbon cloth which drapes well around the nadgery bits for the first lamination but then switching to a drapable fibreglass cloth for subsequent layers ?
That way you could use highly drapable cloth but at a much lower cost.
Purists may consider it sacrilege not to use 100% carbon cloth but unless you're producing a highly stressed component, the strength of carbon fibre is not required and glass would be more than adequate and would weigh about the same.

When I made my handguards I used 100% twill weave fibreglass cloth.
Using the same epoxy resin as for carbon, the results came out thin and light, indistinguishable from carbon once painted and plenty strong enough.

Silly question but .. you are using twill weave cloth rather than the less drapable plain weave stuff, I presume ?

I made my own gelcoat by adding fumed silica to the laminating resin.
That way at least I was pretty sure that it was totally compatible with (and therefore bonded well to) the main body of the moulding.

Now that I think back, I seem to remember that my first procedure after the gelcoat was to fill the tighter nooks and crannies with a mixture of resin and finely chopped glass strands, to soften the contours before applying the first layer of cloth.

[350TSS]

Utopia:
I do not know what type of cloth i am using, twill or plain without checking what was bought/supplied - it was what Easy Composites recommended for wet lay CF.
I have thought about applying finely chopped up CF (off cuts) to the second resin layer but up til now I have done all 3 or 4 coats at the same time and the chopped up CF gets very tangled up and starts to pull at the lower lamination and the brush becomes a nightmare. Perhaps with time between laminations it would work but I would have to wait for this "filler coat" to cure before the next layer

[350TSS]

Good progress today, I started with mass production of some of the smaller CF components, at least the first coat with the good quality CF. I will give them a second lamination tomorrow and then remove them from the moulds, hopefully they will still have a bit of flexibility for ease of removal and if they need more rigidity then a third or even fourth coat of the cheaper CF will be applied.


Whilst waiting for them to cure I finished tidying up the lower headlamp bracket, which hasn’t turned out that badly, when on the bike it will be entirely hidden beneath the instruments, below the headlamp shell and behind the fly-screen. A useful saving of c 40g over the Mk 1 brazed up version.


Also I knocked up a bigger bore version of the tank breather to fit to the front of the tank (on the blister in front of the filler cap ala 750/900SS).


Sorry pictures in wrong order - Doh!!!

[350TSS]

More CF production today, but I had to share the garage with half a dozen of hornets (a squadron?) obviously looking for a nest site. They were getting a bit hyper-active/irate with all the fumes.





Unfortunately 3 fails from yesterday’s efforts – all I think because the moulds have too sharp a radius which means that the CF cannot follow the mould. Trouble is for some moulds they are what they are (eg. Headlamp shell) so I will have to find a way of holding the resined up CF tight to the mould while it cures. Vacuum forming is obviously the correct way to go but a bit late for my moulds.

[350TSS]

Bit more CF production today and a decision made to attempt to modify some moulds to eliminate/reduce the impact of the sharp angle and hopefully make them capable of producing CF components fit for purpose.

For the infill panels it involves filler and a lot of tedious and intricate rubbing down, the sprocket cover will be a simple re-design, it is after all simply a means of a) preventing fingers and toes being trapped in a rotating sprocket and b) stopping the chain gunk getting everywhere. A flat CF plate is on the cards mounted on aluminium bushes.

The head lamp shell mould modification required a bit of lateral thinking. I plan to eliminate the right angle at the leading edge of the bowl by cutting some 1mm polypropylene into a 25mm x 692mm strip and bending it into a circle and then glue-ing it onto the leading edge of the mould effectively deepening the mould by 25mm. There will be sufficient resolution where the join line is to define a cut line for when the CF is removed from the mould. I will give it a go tomorrow, fingers firmly crossed.

[350TSS]

Three more duds from the CF “factory”, the seat hump pad, the headlamp support connecting plate and the chain oiler reservoir. These parts have structural integrity but are cosmetically hopeless. Two problems are occurring, first getting the gel coat to sit evenly in/on the mould and second getting the first and subsequent layers of CF to follow the contour of the mould and adhere to the gel coat. Results are air bubbles behind unsupported cloudy/milky looking gel coat. Worse with the chain oiler reservoir the back half only fits the front half where it touches so considerable work will be required before these two bits can be bonded together.
It is very obvious that wet laying CF needs to have a mould that is designed for wet laying, i.e. not too convoluted, definitely no right angles, all changes of plane with a largish radius (absolute minimum 6mm). None of which of course I knew when I started. A lot of time was invested in the moulds and it is a bit disheartening to be confronted with so many abject failures. I am left with 2 options – a) re-manufacture or modify the moulds or b) repair the cosmetic damage to the components by overlaying with epoxy resin, effectively using it as a filler. This will take multiple coats and some careful rubbing down and will have to be primed and painted as the epoxy resin is affected by UV in a way that the gel coat is not. Either way, it will be a substantial increase in my estimated time to completion but option b) will be probably less than option a) and is therefore preferred.

[utopia]

Sorry to hear of your carbon fibre tribulations.
Hand lay-up can be tricky, eh ?
I did ponder vacuum bagging but my moulds were relatively simple and I (just) got away with it.

Two thoughts ..
1) The carbon tank needs a rethink.
2) I got to wondering if you could restore a suitable appearance to those parts which are essentially cosmetic rather than structural, simply by serious rubbing down followed by a few heavy coats of clear laquer ?
I have restored carbon parts which looked like scrap using U-Pol no1 clear, uv resistant stuff (expensive but good).

Also, if you would like me to dig out a few samples of the fibreglass twill weave cloth that I used, pm me your address.
I certainly found that voids were minimalised by using twill weave cloth in the finer grades, as it is much more drapable and conforms much better to the nadgery shaped areas.

Also, btw, East Coast Fibreglass were much cheaper than Easy Composites.
They also have quite a few "end of roll" bargains most of the time.

Finally, you have my commiserations.
It can be disheartening (to say the least) when a lot of work goes in but the results don't match the effort.
But its all a learning process, I guess.

[350TSS]

Thanks mate - when you are down, you do not know how much that means.

I have only just (about 3 hours ago) discovered the Eastern Composites website and having spent the last hour reviewing their videos, this subject is just so technical - what chance the poor amateur?

With the total arrogance of those that know nothing I shall overcome.

[350TSS]

PS I really, really wanted to be at the week-ender this year - it was my target in October 2018 and the way things are now going next year is looking "iffy". I will be there 2020.