bjohnson Posted June 14, 2011 Report Share Posted June 14, 2011 Sorry I have not been on again.... Busy time here at the moment.. But I have done more on the Aprilia project and have just about finished all the moulds for the frame and swing arm protectors.. Bodywork will be here later this week to I hope... So will be a mad rush to finish off the bike soon. Anyway.. here are some pics for those who have not been following this on Farcebook.... Test parts in glass to check the fit and scribe up the moulds for a cutting line to get the finished part trimmed correctly from the mould. Here is a carbon test part too just to check the finish of the part... If you look you can see from the bagged part, I have now invested in a composites vacuum pump and have all the vacuum bagging kit. Looking to have a 6" x 4" x 4" oven and a nice huge freezer to keep pre-preg in.. I hope to be doing full pre-preg parts including my own bodywork soon.... These are just my first attempts at making carbon parts so I hope they look OK. They are straight out of the mould and have not been polished or cut with polishing compound yet either... This is a great thread, particularly the carbon fabrication. Any chance you would be willing to share some further insight into the techniques?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted June 14, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2011 Just finished a new master plug for the final swing arm/ frame protector set.. Had a nightmare with this one.. its shape is awkward to remove the part from and as it was one of the first moulds I made I made a few mistakes which I had to work round. I made an OK mould but it was a bit short of the weld lines I wanted to fit up to so I extended the mould but I also found that in the vac bag some of the air bubbles bulged and effected the parts and when I opened up the bubbles and filled them with resin the surface started to suffer. Then finally an edge chipped so I gave up and made this plug from the crappy mould. OK this looks fine but I did put extra gel coat in the mould to fill the problem areas and allow me to sand them back here and then hand finish off the plug and then compoud the surface to get the best finish I can. I will be making the mould from this new plug. So I will if I remember take photos of the process I use to make a vacuum bag mould.. I now try and use the bagging process for everything as when I swap over to pre-preg and an oven the moulds need to be as air free as possible as the air will expand with heat and pop the surface of the mould. It also helps consolidate the layers and minimise the amount of resin I use. If I can used 30% less resin making the mould it will save money and make it stronger too.. Here are a few pics I took making some parts a week or so ago.... Vacuum bag. Which is a 1.5m wide tube that you have to seal with a special mastic sealing tape but lets you make any length of bag as long as it is 1.5 m wide. You can cut the bag onto a sheet to make your own bags if you use the sealing tape. Self cutting and sealing Vacuum fitting. Here are the Peel ply (striped cloth) which allows exess resin through and is Teflon coated so it does peel off the back of the part when it has cured. The red film is a release film. It can be used instead of the peel ply as it has some pin hole perforations to allow exess resin through. I use both for parts as it controls the resin which comes through and helps give a more even resin consistancy over the whole part. Finally there is another matrial like a felt called bleeder/breather cloth. It helps get all the air out of the part and though the bag as the open nature of the felt lets air flow through. It also soaks up the resin bleed off from the part and holds that exess resin until it has cured. All of these materials have to be thrown away after use and do add to the cost of the manfacture of the parts but you can put quite a lot of moulds in to a bag as it can be almost any size as I mentioned in the first bag picture.. All the materials set out ready for use. Pump connected removing air from the bag. One of my 2 stage vacuum pumps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted June 17, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 I was asked 2 days ago about making some power valve pulley brackets.. I have just pulled the original out of the splash mould I made yesterday and allowed 24 hours to cure. I have to make a part from this mould that will be polished and smoothed to perfection to then make the actual mould for the finished parts. I think the first parts would be ready for use by Wednesday! Not bad a week from request to making a splash mould from a scabby part to a polished carbon fiber part.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gobert23 Posted June 17, 2011 Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 I was asked 2 days ago about making some power valve pulley brackets.. <snip> You should get plenty of people after these on the RGV forum, as one of the ol' members ('Thorsten' - no not that Thorsten) used to make 'em, but not anymore... Nice work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fontyyy Posted June 17, 2011 Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 oohh, the irony of something light, strong and well made attached to an Aprilia power valve system Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted June 17, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 oohh, the irony of something light, strong and well made attached to an Aprilia power valve system You know me Fontyyy.. The irony is not lost on me...... haha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjohnson Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 I was asked 2 days ago about making some power valve pulley brackets.. I have just pulled the original out of the splash mould I made yesterday and allowed 24 hours to cure. I have to make a part from this mould that will be polished and smoothed to perfection to then make the actual mould for the finished parts. I think the first parts would be ready for use by Wednesday! Not bad a week from request to making a splash mould from a scabby part to a polished carbon fiber part.... so are you making a gelcoat/fibre glass part using the splash mold which you can then rub down, fill etc from which you then make another fibreglass mold in order to form teh final carbon part? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted June 25, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2011 Yes. I can alter the splash mould with the Dremel and it can be a bit rough as I will make a part from the altered splash mould then smooth and polish it up to get a really nice plug made that can be used to make the actual mould from. To be honest it does seem to get a really nice finish you need to do that with most parts as you can get a glass like finish on the gel coat and when you mould from that part and polish up the inside of the mould too the finish looks as good as laquer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heds954 Posted June 25, 2011 Report Share Posted June 25, 2011 Top stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fontyyy Posted June 25, 2011 Report Share Posted June 25, 2011 This will be one of the quickest project builds ever I hope. Want to have it out in April and get it all set up. Which April is that Rich? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjohnson Posted June 27, 2011 Report Share Posted June 27, 2011 Yes. I can alter the splash mould with the Dremel and it can be a bit rough as I will make a part from the altered splash mould then smooth and polish it up to get a really nice plug made that can be used to make the actual mould from. To be honest it does seem to get a really nice finish you need to do that with most parts as you can get a glass like finish on the gel coat and when you mould from that part and polish up the inside of the mould too the finish looks as good as laquer. I thought that was the case. I'm tinkering with a few carbon parts myself and always interested in what other people are doing. I have a long term project on the bench, a carbon fibre airbox for my GSXR 1000 K5 trackbike - well thats the goal, at the moment its the third prototype of a mold and various fibre glass practice runs!! I've had a couple of attempts at prototype molds and now I'm onto a slightly different approach. I realised after a couple of attempts that you cant replicate the original ABS plastic item in glass or carbon fibre as its got too many nooks and crannies! Now I'm making a two part mold from a single 'de-seemed' abs plug, the intention being to form 2 glass (and ultimately carbon) halves which are then resin bonded together to form the single part. As its a relatively complex shape I spend a lot of time thinking about how to get it right!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted July 5, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 Which April is that Rich? Hmm...... I had it mostly done then the bodywork has gone up to be made in carbon..... It is still there.... Hmmmm.... Not great but will be here soon.... I have set a deadline with the guy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted July 5, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 I thought that was the case. I'm tinkering with a few carbon parts myself and always interested in what other people are doing. I have a long term project on the bench, a carbon fibre airbox for my GSXR 1000 K5 trackbike - well thats the goal, at the moment its the third prototype of a mold and various fibre glass practice runs!! I've had a couple of attempts at prototype molds and now I'm onto a slightly different approach. I realised after a couple of attempts that you cant replicate the original ABS plastic item in glass or carbon fibre as its got too many nooks and crannies! Now I'm making a two part mold from a single 'de-seemed' abs plug, the intention being to form 2 glass (and ultimately carbon) halves which are then resin bonded together to form the single part. As its a relatively complex shape I spend a lot of time thinking about how to get it right!! Yep..... ABS plugs are a nightmare... It is possibly better to make the part and think about other ways like filling and making it smoother in a glass version to be the actual plug for your finished mould. This is best if you think of creating the inside of the box not the outside.. Then making fittings to fit the frame afterwards. I think that is the best way as then you have a perfectly smooth internal box and the outside may not look as smooth but it is the airflow inside that is the most important part. The two piece mould is a good idea but as you could be doing it from an internal perspective a one piece mould may work. Especially if you do a carbon part as the heat from the curing will expand the plug as it cures or of you use some external heat to speed up curing. The carbon will not contract once you have the part cured but the mould will slightly so it could help the part release from the mould. Doing an external mould will be best as a 2 piece one I think. But there should be no need to bond the halves together if you can make the mould correctly as you can possibly used areas of the outer flange to be the mounting points. Then make an upper which fits to the base again making the mould smooth on the inner surface. If you use a vacuum process and peel ply when you are happy then the outside will just have a matt textured surface which looks good, I think. The other more intricate option is to have a press type mould where the inner is made up and covered in carbon then a close fitting outer multiple part mould is bolted to press it all tightly together. It is a more involved option but basically you make a part round the inner mould then without removing it you sand and smooth the outer surface then polish it up to a gloss and then make a multiple part mould which will give you a perfect thickness all over and allow you to have a carbon weave showing inside and out. Once the outer mould is cured split it and remove the part you have made and now you can wax up all the mould parts and make your part with a perfect finish. It will squeeze the exess resin out and all you need to do is make sure you do not make the part too thin or thick so the outer mould does squeeze but not crush and remove too much resin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted October 13, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 OK.... Again not been on a while.... Been getting stuff done as the original mould maker and the guy who was actually going to make the kits made a really bad mess of the parts I saw.... Not even funny how bad they were! I dont think I could have made plain gel coated parts that badly if I tried! Not going to go into too much detail as I seem to break down sobbing each time I have to re-tell the tale.. So before I get too tearful. I will say I am going to be taking over and making the parts myself... Luckily the guy now making the moulds is not too far away and I can use his oven for now... So now been handed over to a guy in Chesterfield.. He has been working on the pattern parts for a few weeks.. The seat and tank I sent up to Scotland was bonded together to make a monocoque seat and tank so at least that used my pattern parts even if the idiot didnt line it all up as he didnt put the grommets back into the subframe! He also altered the mounting points so the parts from his moulds had no bolt holes and inserts to actually bolt it all in place. So I had to do about 4 days work to get it back to line up and be shaped correctly again. The fairing was a different story.. my pattern was wrecked so we had to use the one made by the other guy... It had air bubbles all over it and as soon as it would get warm the air would expand and ruin the new moulds. So it had to be heated up in the oven to about 40 degrees and all the bubbles burst and filled with a thin resin to fill the voids and stop it from doing the same thing when the fairing is sealed ready for the moulds to be made. The shape was OK ish... But it was rippled and cut so roughly that there was no way to make the mould and put refrerence lines to trim to for ease of cutting it was a mess! So Vic has done about 3 weeks work on the fairing and as you will see in the pictures there is a lot of foam and wood work supporting it to stop it from twisting again and to make it suitable for being moulded off again. It has been built up with about 6 coats of a high build resin to get the shape close again and now I am hoping that in the next 10 days with Vic doing this work the body work at least will be all done.. Just now there is a slight change as the seat and tank are one piece making it both more expensive to build and more complex too. So as I now have a fuel tank to worry about I have given the task of sorting out the correct pre-pregs to a company called SHD. They are going to custom impregnate carbon and Diolen for me to make both the cosmetic aspect and the sealed fuel tank aspect of it all... Fingers crossed it all works. Just a shame that the original guy did not get this done and now it has been sorted by others.... But the plus side is I now have new contacts and can call on an expert mould maker to do that side of it all for me... Here are a few updated photos... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisH Posted October 13, 2011 Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 Looking good there MorePower, keep us updated, i for one am watching it with interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted October 13, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 I now do need to get this all sorted too.. I have been sent a customer bike to get the parts onto so looks like a busy winter. I have Davy's NSRVF to finish off.. Will post updates on that soon too... Been waiting for the electrician to come and do the loom on that and still not heard from the exahust guy! That has been over 6 months. So as soon as Davy's bike is done I have to build this onto another replica. Just a reminder of the shape this will be when done... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted October 17, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2011 Few more pics....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
si.likes.guiness Posted October 18, 2011 Report Share Posted October 18, 2011 nice to see you on here again rich i still never sent you that tank shield i will get round to it mate and who in my neck of the woods are you using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted October 24, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2011 nice to see you on here again rich i still never sent you that tank shield i will get round to it mate and who in my neck of the woods are you using? Haha..... I am using a guy called Vic. He is based close to the town center in a unit off Pond Street. Odd how the guy up in Scotland ended up sending the parts down there... As you know 20 minutes from my dads and about 10 hours closer than going up to the north of Scotland to see my bits being made! I keep meaning to drop in to see you... No worries about the tank shield... Been to busy getting other stuff done and still being careful what I post up here as I am still owed £12,000 by Icon Motorcycles! I know the guy has been snooping on here to just get something to avoid paying his bloody bill! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
si.likes.guiness Posted October 24, 2011 Report Share Posted October 24, 2011 its about time that nob paid up mate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted October 24, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2011 its about time that nob paid up mate Yep.... I have just had a word with Scott Smart too and he knows the situation So does his dad Paul.... I dont want to bring the Sheene name any bad press but if this goes to court I will make sure it does get VERY public. JUST got off the phone with Scott..... Well now we will see what happens..... Looks like my new bezzy mate Scott is going to get this sorted.... HAHA... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted October 26, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 26, 2011 Even more photos.... Vic has just sent these through to me.... Almost ready to be moulded up from now.. Resin coated with Durabuild primer and just needs 2 coats of a hard surface. The it will be ready. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballbag Posted November 3, 2011 Report Share Posted November 3, 2011 ossum. that is all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter187 Posted November 4, 2011 Report Share Posted November 4, 2011 Looks really cool man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted November 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 Been busy again........ Mostly the mould maker has been busy to be honest.. I would just have a pile of glass fibre and resin all over the place with sharp strands sticking out all over the place and covered in blood everytime I even look at picking it up! I now have the fairing moulds here. They need some hand finishing and with how hard the surface is it will take a few days to just wet and dry it to a 1500 grit surface finish and it is 800 grit at the moment! So that will save me about £500 in the mould makers labour and I can do it when I have a spare moment or there is nob all on TV in the evening. They weigh a tonne too..... But I had a really long talk with warnings on what I had to do or else! Even though the moulds are about 15mm thick a Carbon part made with 2 layers of carbon (less than 1mm thick) would damage the surface and stress crack it if I do not do what I am told. I have to heat up the oven in a specific way.. It has to be kept at a constant temperature for a specific time and cooled in a specific way too.... Then I have to take the parts out while the mould is still warm as the Glass fibre mould exapnds and contracts at a different proportion to the Carbon so as it warms the in cured carbon takes the moulds shape and as it cures during the dwell period the carbon will not shrink as much as the mould when it cools.... The carbon will not crack but the mould will... I was shown a hugger mould that was even thicker and had parts that were less than half the thickness I need when I do the seat and tank! That mould was wrecked. So no pressure on when the parts are finally being made.... I would give you the list of things I had to do to make sure the parts dont stick too! But that involves waxes I have never heard of, PVA release agents and chemicals that I am sure are made up and when I order them is will be like some kid bing sent to the stores for a long weight or some sky hooks.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted November 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 The seat unit is almost done and has had loads of work on the surface to get rid of the issues left behind from filling and the previous mould maker not getting it all surface coated before he made a mould... Less said about that the better.... The seat needs one more coat of a special resin based surface finish before it has the flange lines made up and then the mould is made. I have been told it will be started next week. Once that is done then it has to be cooked in an oven for 24 hours at 3 or 4 different temperatures up to just over 100 degrees. The fairing mould has had the first few hours and it needs 10 more hours at 100 degrees after I have done the surface finish by hand. The seat does look so much better in the flesh now. The finish as it is really is better than any body kit I have seen made by anyone outside of a factory team. I know I am biased but it makes Durbahns seat unit we used on the GSXR look very very budget! So will see what the finished parts look like but I am hoping it will be amazing! I cannot wait to see it in carbon now...... Oh Si.... Been told Replicast has closed down so now my mould is the closest to the BB Faring and if their mould goes missing then you have the only in modified BB fairing and seat I know of... You may want to think about having it moulded if you know anyone who wants the BB bodywork. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
si.likes.guiness Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 yes i know rich,ive just spoke to you ive just emailed gary,so i will let you know what the irish lads turn up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted January 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Not a lot done to be honest.... But here are a few more updates... The fairing mould is done..... I had to finish the inner surface to help put Vic. So spent about 20 hours with various grades of wet and dry to get a satin finish for pre-preg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heds954 Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Excuse my ignorance, but why a satin finish, is that as good as you can get or is that so it can hold a release agent? I should know the answer really as my dad used to build speedboats for a living, but then, that was over 30yrs ago and I was knee high to a grasshopper! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morepower Posted January 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Also have been getting more moulds made for the frame and swing arm covers as I seem to be making about 4 or 5 sets a week now and the original moulds are not really as good as they should be. So I have been making better moulds now I have some more experience.... ish.... LOL. The moulds from my first ones at the top to the newest ones in black.. Getting a new master made and ready to be moulded from.... The master just after prepwork has got the surface how I want... needs a lot more work to get the surface finish. Part polished... Moulds ready for use. First parts in the new moulds. First parts from the new moulds.. just need trimming up. Trimmed. EDIT.... Just made some parts using the mix with the clearest resin and normal gel coat. In the flesh this does look a lot clearer than the previous method and the new resin has also helped with removing air from being trapped in the weave too.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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