Hi fellow Cafe builders
As promised in an earlier post, here are some work in progress shots of the seat "undertray" (what are these bits called?) I've been working on (on and off) for a few weeks now and some photo's of the carbon fibre skinning process I used on it.
This is the MK2 version which was built out of the original steel plate MK1 version, which whilst having nice clean lines and being significantly lighter than the MK2 version, was potentially not going to give enough bodywork to wheel clearance without using ridiculously long shocks. This version was made using the original steel plate MK1 and a cut up splash guard (normally site in front of the back wheel on an XS) that I had kicking around in the garage.
The plan was always to use this piece of the bike to try out some carbon fibre skinning to see if it would be a viable process to use on some of the bigger parts on the bike and to learn about "skinning" in the process.
Here are some photo's of the stages completed so far
The undertray ready for laminating and looking very "home built"
A layer of glass fibre was put on the back to hold it all together and give some structural strength (with hindsight this step could have been eliminated and replaced with a layer of carbon cloth)
Both front and back were given a coat of black epoxy base coat (each side was done seperately throughout the process) and left to cure for around 4-5 hours until it was virtually dry
A layer of 2/2 200g pro finish carbon cloth was applied to each side and given a very light coating of epoxy top coat which was left to fully cure (overnight) (in the interests of keeping this post as short as possible I'll only include photo's of one side, however all of the following steps were applied to both sides)
Once cured this was lightly rubbed down with 120 paper and then given 3-4 coats of epoxy top coat (leaving to go "tacky" between coats - around 3 hours for each coat)
Once these coats were fully cured, both sides were flattened off using 120 paper in preperation for a final coat of epoxy top coat
Top coat applied, this coat was kept warm with a fan heater and a hair dryer was used to draw out any air bubbles that may have got into the resin while I was mixing it
A close up of the finish after the final layer of epoxy top coat was applied
The next steps will be to flatten off the top coat with diminishing grades of wet and dry paper in preperation for a layer of 2K top coat or possibly polishing using different grades of polish (haven't decided which yet and need to experiment with both types of finish before commiting to either) Will post pics of the finished product installed with the seat once it is finished off.
Sorry for the long post, just thought I would share the carbon skinning process I used in case it was of interest to other forum users. This has definately been a useful learning experience which has informed how I am going to tackle some of the bigger bits on the bike.
Thanks for reading
Pixie