Quote:
Originally Posted by 320icar
That is genius for the seat pan. I just started started doing it out of styro but god the tape is a great ass idea. Maybe I'll experiment with expanding foam as well
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Thank you sir! However, note that I'm going to be upholstering my cafe hump so I'm building the flat pan portion only. I've figured out the the design of the hump while building iterations using both florists foam and clay.
Update:
Finished trimming up the battery box. My first attempt at fibreglassing so I'll give it a pass. It definitely would be considered quite shitty if it were a commercial product but for now it's strong enough and it works.. There were a few air bubbles and I found some of the layers were compressed poorly and seperated. I will have to touch it up with a a bit of body filler and sanding before receiving some plastic-friendly paint.
Fortunately the visible undertail section did turn out quite nice. The carnauba wax worked perfect as a mold release.
My major problem was that the resin was too thick/sticky and difficult to apply quickly enough before it hardened so this round I added a cap of acetone to each batch -- so far it seems to have worked perfectly.
So on to the seat pan!
First I made a duplicate form of my Shorai battery using a styrofoam core sandwiched between cardboard and wrapped in tape. Holy fuck do I ever hate styrofoam. Worked great however.
Set the form into the electronics tray along with a cardboard surround. Tried to save some money by buying some unbranded tape. It is the shittiest tape I have ever used in my life. Two layers of it to smooth out the area and to ensure the resin doesn't soak through. In hindsight I should've made a cardboard template to reinforce the tape.
Side-shot. You can see how much the battery extends vertically. It will however be completely hidden within the seam foam once it's upholstered. I could've had it hang lower but I didn't want too much of a visible box under the seat. My thinking is a rectilinear form in that area would detract from both the visual "floating" effect in the rear created by the combination of the monoshock and the inline-four.
Fully glassed with 3 overall layers and a bit of reinforcement along the "box" area. Base layer of mat, with pre-cut cloth on top. This time around I added acetone to the resin to thin it out. Worked flawlessly, however I have noticed it is drying slightly slower than last time. Left a space heater to help with the curing.
Next and final glass part will be the front fender. I haven't really figured out how its going to be mounted but I'm going to leave that problem for future me.