I do have a gas burner, which is why I did consired the bodywork lead bars in one of the posts, I assume it's the same material than the weights (or at least melts with a burner) and more easily acquirable as it is sold by the bar. Interesting little observation of the original bars btw that there are no bar end weights whatsoever originally as the handles are made from solid aluminum. Well, there are small bar ends but they weighed close to nothing...

 

Well that took forever and a day...

I haven`t done anything to the Daytona during the still-ongoing hiatus on this project but wanted show you what a courier brought to our doorstep today.


In the first days of last December I sent some parts to the UK to be hydrodipped in carbon fiber pattern, including the rear hugger since there isn`t a double sided swing version available anywhere, along with the chain guard and the infill panels between the tank and the tail fairings. Well, that didn`t go exactly to plan... The whole process started to get farce- like features right at the start as the trail of the shipment to the hydrodipping company went cold in Denmark. After a while the parts did eventually reach the recipient, but that was only the very beginning...

I did get the company to respond to my email query about whether they had received my parts or not after a while in about the mid of December, after which I heard nothing of them for weeks. I sent another query about had they already done the parts but never got an answer. I waited some more, and after some weeks I did get a respond from the assumed owner that they need my address to give me a shipping quote back here (I had already given my address to them in the work order enclosed in the box) so I responded the very same day with the address and continued waiting. And waiting. And some more waiting, nothing. I went to their website to fill another price query form with my address and all the other info but with my work email address if the problem would be with my inbox, never got an answer there.

At this point I was just about to file charges against them, but decided to send one more email to them, this time with a pretty pissed tone, and lo and behold, got an answer that THE PARTS HAVE BEEN READY FROM CHRISTMAS BUT THEY NEED MY ADDRESS TO CALCULATE THE SHIPPING QUOTE! AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! at first I planned to send the reply in all capitals but restrained myself only to make a little ***** about sending the address to them in several occasions and wondered has it occurred to anyone to actually contact me about it!

So I finally got the dang bill from the whole thing, I asked to pay through paypal cause to tell you the truth had precisely zero trust in them to ever get my parts back so at least I could dispute the payment if they wouldn`t start showing up with the greatest haste.


Today, at noon, a courier rang our doorbell, only FIVE SHORT MONTHS AFTER I SENT THE PARTS!!!!

...When I got back home from work and opened the box...



















































































I was blown away!




























































































































The quality of the workmanship really astounded me, by looking at the parts you`d never guess they were used when sent to be coated. That hugger was silver the last time I saw it!



You really have to get up close to see they are in fact printed and not real carbon fiber. I went through all of the parts to find even one dust particle of other imperfection, but had to confess they in fact are FLAWLESS.



It`s almost a pity I don`t need these anymore as the Airtech tail ordered in the meantime has these parts integrated into the structure.

 

WW!! Those look fantastic!! Very impressive!!

 

Man Mattson, those look absolutely incredible. Job well done, even if it was 5 months later. You know, you could hang onto them and swap them out sometime just to change up the look. Could kinda switch between the two tails if the ones not to much pain to get off. Either way, hope you get a chance to work on it. Cheers.

 

The quality of the work is very good, they're way better than what I expected them to be, but the communication with the owner was appalingly poor from the get go and IMO a five month wait is beyond unforgivable even though I won't even be needing them for a while still...

The original tail fairings were scratched, cracked and very poorly patched up with resin and a some kind of aluminum mesh so I threw them on a skip, besides if I would have wanted to use them I would have needed to swap the whole tail light/fender thingy as well, not to mention I'm shaving the left footrest brackets off of the subframe when I get to that point.

 

I agree that the communication/customer service was heinous, but I am curious about the cost... what was the cost for those parts to be done, NOT counting the shipping?
And regarding the shipping, I can only imagine that you assumed ALL shipping costs, correct?

 

165 GBP = around 275,80 USD. Not by any means cheap but then again didn`t cost more what it would have to get them professionally painted. No rattle can paints on this one.

And yes I had to pay all shipping back and forth, at first I thought about demanding them to compensate in the mailing costs but at that point was so thoroughly fed up with the whole situation I just wanted the parts back and be done with them.

 

Everyone in this thread right now (me included)







Mattson, those did come out great. (I'll be Newman giggling like a little girl)

 

...is right under your nose...

So this project has been standing for about 2,5 months now, mostly because of money woes from the cars, but I could have done little things like the wiring harness etc. The truth is I kind of hit a wall with where to take the bike. I don`t want to start making a mod I`m not sure of and half way down ditch it having spent hundreds of euros and countless man hours in vain so I haven`t rushed with it. I`m a little sad to say this but I`ve actually gotten a bit bored with the CBR, having ridden it for three years now, starting the fourth, I`ve started wanting for something different and have kept another ear to the wind for possibilities. At first Sprock almost got me lured to buying a VF1000 but of the two possible candidates the first one got pulled from the sell list cause of cracked engine case due to snapped chain, and the second was sold. Last weekend I came VERY close of buying a `92 Ducati 750ss but that got sold right from under my nose as well so I`ve started thinking about what I could do to the Triumph to get the project kickstarted forward. The steering damper has caused me some issues cause there`s no reasonable place to put it, I kinda would want a bellypan or some kind of a lower fairing but haven`t figured out how to make one, the bottom end seems to me kind of slim but I sure as hell do NOT want to put full lowers on it, IMO they look like the bike is not fully assembled.

Then it hit me. Like a lightning from a clear sky. I actually :d myself for not having thought of it at all before. A Crash Cage!

Quick googling, nothing available ready, great. I did find a pretty good selection of different design ideas for speed triples but none of them being sold anywhere so I figured they must be self made. So, off to perusing the very strict and complicated "chopper law" that restricts bike building here.

Turns out crash bars/ stunt cages/ whatever you want to call them are the one thing the law does not touch at all! So as long as I keep the width under 2 meters (!), height to ground 80mm minimum and not attach swords or other clearly dangerous things to them I pretty much have completely free hands to make them myself (as long as they bolt to the frame`s ready holes instead of being welded in place)

After a lengthy phone call and a meeting later with the foreman of the local metal shop bout half a mile from our house I came home, opened the 3D rendering program and started bending bytes this image as my guideline.



This is the first rough sketch I got done:



Still seeking it`s final form but I had something to send to the foreman for ideas and material calculations. We made a deal that they make me a bunch of bends from a fairly thick walled but small-ish pipe (best they got, could have gone a bit bigger but it would have been stainless pipe and doubled the bill) for friday and I start welding them together making necessary plan changes on the fly. I could have just copied the design from the other pic but decided to dumb it down a bit and literally cut some corners to drop the price a little.

Possible update coming during the weekend, hopefully it doesn`t start with "so I torched the house"

 

Project going forward. I fetched the bends I ordered from the local metal shop on my way home from work yesterday and today got to work with the bike.




Square M12 washer was the thickest I could find, it doesn`t cover the entire end of the pipe...



...but enough that the gaps can be welded shut.



Cleaned-ish, still gotta round it out better later.



First test fit on the bike...


...and the first time I`ve ever laid one down in purpose



The stator cover is touching the ground but it`s not bearing any weight. At first I thought the pipe could be 16cm max, but turned out the 20cm it now is, is the absolute MINIMUM.



The rear peg, bolt in place for guidance. Tacked it together, removed the bolt and welded it around.



One side fully assembled. I managed to remove a few pics from between but theys would have just showed the phases I had to go through when trying to figure out how to fit the pipes. The low end is still unfinished cause I have to figure out how to attach the two halves together when I get them both on the bike.







The only problem is that once the front wheel lifts up, the #2 contact point to the ground is the footpeg which doesn`t have a hinge so it might be damaged upon a possible crash but rather that than the engine.



Never noticed that before. Ffffudge. Seems the bike has met with the black stuff more than once on both sides... What is this, a former stunter?!