Ok, so I decided to do a little something more than just tape over my headlight for the upcoming trackday I am doing. I decided to make a carbon fiber replacement instead. I got this idea from a friend. He had wrapped his tank on his supermoto in carbon. I did all this work at his shop. Thanks Stinkyfab.com. So anyway, this is how it goes: (BTW, this thread might take a while to load, there are lots of pics)


First, I took the headlight off the bike and cleaned it just as clean as I could get it. Then I waxed it. It is good to wax it a few times. The better the wax job, the better the carbon will come off the headlight. So after waxing it up, I mounted it to a table. I did this on a metal work table. I welded a rod to the table. Then I welded a bolt to the rod at just the right height so I could fit it thru one of the many mounting holes on the headlight and hold it to the table.



Then, I applied a layer of fiberglass resin to the headlight. I did this just to the area I wanted to copy, not the entire headlight. Then, I laid the carbon fibre sheet that was cut to roughly the headlight shape, but bigger, on the headlight and applied a coat of resin to the outside.



I let this dry for a day. Then, I very carefully peeled the carbon shell off the headlight. I was very careful and went around the outside edge lifting very slightly. It took a while. In the second pic you can actually see the carbon flexing!



After I removed it, I cut a piece of fiberglass in the shape of the inner surface to reinforce the carbon.



I then coated thin inner surface with resin and laid the piece in and applied resin over it.



While it was still wet and soft we taped it into the fairing from the front so it would dry in the proper shape. I let it dry for about 3 hours.



So this next step took a while. After letting the resin dry, I cut out some aluminum strips. Then, I bent them so they would fit against some of the stock headlight mount points. I also bent them so they would reach down to the surface of the carbon and lay flat. I drilled holes in the tabs so the fiberglass and resin would have more room to attach itself. It was not easy getting the tabs flat on the back of the carbon. (ANd yes, I know they look ghetto, but they work)



After finishing the tabs I cut more fiber glass to go over them. I did a total of 2 layers. Here it is after they have been applied.



After applying those layers, I let it dry for a day. Here are some pics of it on the bike. I am not totally done, gonna sand, clearcoat and polish it so it will be all nice and shiny but I wanted to get something up tonight. What do you guys think???





PS- I am very tired, I will look at this tomorrow and probably fix a bunch of errors and add some stuff!

-Josh[IMG][/IMG]

 

wow, thats awesome!!! lucky to have a shop like your friends as a resource!!! make a solo cowl with the proper locking mechanism and i would seriously buy from you/your friend...

 

That's going to be sweet for a trackday.

 

Too bad it gets dark. That **** looks gangster.

 

Dark? You mean like dull and not glossy? Well, I still have to sand the front and clear coat it. It gets really glossy from the clearcoat. I will post a pic of that when its done.

-Josh

Oh, and as for a solo seat, I kinda thought about that. 2 things. First, this crap is expensive!!!!!! Carbon is like, 50 a yard. I mean, that would probably do like, 6-8 seats, but still. Also, I would have to spend about 10+ labor hours to make a mold. Then all the resin and fiberglass to reinforce and other stuff. Who knows, I havent given up. Hahahahaha, anything is possible. I have other ideas in my head I am working on, so we will see.

 

Man this is exactly what I was looking for...
https://cbrforum.com/m_456227/tm.htm

I wish you could buy something like this.

 

Yea, I mean, I was thinking of building to sell them. But I don't know. I know I would get faster the more I built but I would want to charge like, at least 150+ and for double that, you can get race plastics, so who would want to pay that? If like 20 people said they would pay, then maybe.

Funny thing tho, on that link you put up, someone tried to justify why they tape headlights. It is just a hold over from when bikes had glass headlights. Think about this, what is your windscreen made from? Why dont they make you tape that? On that note, how about your entire fairing?? Pointless!!

 

I was not commenting on the CF. I meant too bad the earth gets dark because that **** is certified gangster and would love that on my bike, but we have night time. It sucks. I wish it did not get dark.

 

Hahahahahahaha, yea! I get it. Don't mind me if I am a little slow!

 

Its alright, It was a vauge comment.