Fiberglass Seat and Fleece

[paultsmith]

Hi All,
Just wondering if anyone has tried to make a fiberglass seat by first cutting out a bunch of "ribs" to follow the profile of the hump they wanted and then stretching fleece over this and then applying the fiberglass and resin.

It seems that it would be easy to draw the seat up on the computer, and print a pattern, cut it out on wood. Might be easier than sanding foam?

I've noticed a lot of people do this when designing sub enclosures for cars.

Any pros or cons of applying this to a cafe seat?

 

[Swagger]

It could certainly be done, but it'd be heavy. Fleece is great for a structural piece like a sub-box that has to be really solid and perhaps weight isn't as important.....but...

A cafe bike is by nature lightened to the maximum safe limit, putting heavy bits back on doesn't seem to make much sense.

A way you could use your patern/wood buck but remain light would be to stretch a piece of polyester cloth (think grandma's pant suit) hit that with your resin then glass from there with matt and twill.

 

[afastman]

Use your methodology to create the "negative" of the shape you want. Then you have a mold into which to lay glass...if it turns out well, you can make more.

 

[rockcitycafe]

ehhhhh... no.

I wouldn't go this route, the polyester will take the shortest route between your ribs, so you'll end up with a seat that looks like an ethiopian kid...er damn that was awful...

You can definitely use the computer route, I've done this a few times, but it's best to take your drawings and create profile templates, so slice your drawing every 2 inches, and cut a negative rib, then use that when you're sculpting your foam, so you know you've got an accurate model, and make a few templates for the side profile, like, a negative of the side view and negative of the top view, if you do this and have some patience, you'll end up with a foam model that will be really smooth and accurate, 99% of where people run into big problems with fglass is that their foam is not really well done and they rush to get glass on it. remember, your glass isn't going to be more than 1/8" thick, or shouldn't be in any case, so if you've got a error in your foam of 1/8", well, you're either going to have to sand your glass down to nothing, or add 1/8" of body filler to it to correct that error. so in a word, get the foam right, use templates and take your time... or just buy a ready made seat

 

[Hot Rod Troy]

........ so you'll end up with a seat that looks like an ethiopian kid...er damn that was awful...

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