Thanks guys!
Been making more progress this week. High on the list of getting the bike running again is new mounts for all the electrical goodies. Since super light is the name of the game here the obvious solution was carbon panels. While making the panels I figured I might as well use some of my carbon scraps for a little bit of aesthetic enhancement as well.
The process:
Start with your carbon fabric of choice. I could have gone with some fancy stuff here but the tray will be basically invisible so I stuck with basic 2x2 cloth. The tape on the edges is for fray control.
I laid out the fabric on an aluminum plate to make sure the two panels would both fit. The larger will go under the tail and hold the M-unit and CDI units, the smaller just behind the fuel tank to hold the reg/rec.
After wetting out each layer of fabric we add a release film and a bleeder cloth to absorb the extra resin then bag it up and pull a vacuum to check the seal. You can see the small secondary plate that's got the scraps on it. Both of these were sealed perfectly the first time around, which is a first for me.
Then into the oven to reduce the cure time from 24 hours to 4 hours
A few hours later the part are ready to come off the plates. You'll note the rough surface finish on the top side, this is caused by the bleeder fabric unevenly distributing the pressure from the bag and is the downside to this style of carbon fiber manufacturing. But again, these parts will largely be hidden so surface finish is not an issue.
At this point I started knocking out the aesthetic bits since I didn't have the proper measurements for the trays. My bike has bonamici racing rearsets for a ZX10R and they come with metal heel guards. I decided to make some slightly better looking versions of them. So to start I roughed out the shape on a band saw with a backwards blade.
Finer detailing was done with a hand held router, and final shaping was done with a palm sander. Only thing missing now is mount holes.
At this point the stock guards were 20gr and my copies were 6gr. But the carbon was quite a bit more flexible that the aluminum, so to fix that and make them look a bit more pretty I did a hot coat, or a second application of resin on cured carbon. This has the effect of stiffening the part (at the cost of weight) and giving the carbon that deep shine everyone loves.
After a night curing normally and a morning in the oven at low heat the hot coat is cured and the parts are ready to be drilled and mounted.
At that point I got distracted by the fact that I finally had my carbs back so I put them back on. The only thing left to get the bike running again is the harness and electrical mounts. Kitty wants to know why it's taken so long.
This week hopefully I'll be able to finish those trays, get a battery mount sorted out, and build the harness so I can take her out and piss off all my neighbors with my lack of exhaust!