While I'm on a break and my fiberglass is cooking, I thought I'd drop
in to do a brief up-date on the "Lakester" progress. Our Indiana
evenings have turned from unbearable to very pleasent with cool temps
and much lower humidity. This is almost ideal for laying up
fiberglass and slinging bondo without much trauma. My idea is working
out quite nicely to build the molds right in place on the bike to
save the pattern construction step. Time is of the essence to
complete the bike in time and not leave loose ends to be finished on
the salt if you catch my drift. I CNC cut the side panel profiles to
the radius' that I had developed in CAD. I then hand cut the
silouettes in cardboard to establish fit and transfered the shape to
1/4" birch plywood. With a little heat and moisture, the plywood
follows the profiles really nice and you can create a gentle compound
curve to span between the upper fairing and the belly pan. I've used
this method before to build SCCA Sports Racer bodies and it seems
that I hadnt picked up too much rust on my skills over the years. Our
body panels will be around 1/8th to 3/16ths thick with 3 layers of
ounce and a half glass cloth. Since we wont be rubbing wheels with
competitors, there's no need for fancy E-glass or woven fibers for
impact strength. This makes life easy with the lay-up. Please take a
moment and check out the pictures of the process so you can see how
simple it is. "Simple is as simple does"...Aint that right Forrest.
Always Racing,
Phil