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Henry Martin spends his nights writing fiction and poetry, which predominately deals with the often-overlooked aspects of humanity. He is the author of three novels: Escaping Barcelona, Finding Eivissa, and Eluding Reality; a short story collection, Coffee, Cigarettes, and Murderous Thoughts; and a poetry collection, The Silence Before Dawn. His most recent published project is a collection of Photostories in five volumes under the KSHM Project umbrella, for which he collaborated with Australian photographer Karl Strand, combining one of a kind images with short stories and vignettes. He is currently working on his next novel narrated in two opposing points of view. He lives with his family in the Northeast.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Playing with fiberglass

My first adventure with fiberglass came about when I needed to make a rear cowl for my CB750F project. At that time I was unhappy with the so-called cafe cowls available for that bike, and decided to make one myself. In the end, after countless hours full of bad fumes and aggravation, I spent more money on resin and cloth than what I would have had I just bought a ready made cowl.  But, I learned something new, and even though I vowed never to play with fiberglass again, here we are today.

This time, having the limited experience I gained by making the first one, I took more time in prepping the area, molding the final shape, and cutting my cloth and mat to size before starting. I also learned how to mix the resin and how much I was going to use, so this was helpful. In the end, temperature was also in my favor, being the usual January cold. The polyester resin sets real fast in the summer, so doing it this past weekend had its advantages.

I started by removing everything off the subframe and taping the subframe off with painters' tape. In the past, I made the mistake of using foam and aluminum foil, which ended up melting into the foam when the resin heated up. This time it was cardboard only (old shipping boxes), and tape.
I decided to incorporate both the rear inner fender and the seat latch into my design. Of course, the fender had to be shortened a bit, but it works.
Given my desire to use the seat latch, I first made a seat pan from only two layers of fiberglass cloth - to be reinforced later - following the contours of the subframe.
The reason for this is that the subframe is actually curved and the only option other than raising the frame to become level, is to copy its shape. I will be making my own seat, probably recessed into the curve, in near future.
I then added the basic shape of the cowl. The tire is there just so I could get some proportion (it is a front tire)
Once attached to the subframe, I needed to both reinforce the single-layer glass, and to shape it so it would attach to the crossmember under the latch. The shaping was done using old cardboard boxes. Don't judge my mat work from this picture, as I used way too much. I'd rather cut away than run short.

Where the bolts are, eventually the turn signal stalks will be used to attach it to the subframe. The second attachment point will be under the seat latch to the crossmember.
Here it is with the excess cut off.
The rear is shaped like that to accept a taillight/license plate mount. I still have a ton of work with final shaping and cutting, and sanding, and....

I already started on that, but don't have any pictures yet.

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