SV Carbon Tank project for Zoran

[drizz]

Chris,

I hope you're ready for the next project 2 Yards of 60" camo is on its way to me. I may just bring it up if we do the workshop.

I think the texture of the same material used for Summer BDU's could look nice...

 

[Coyote]

Subscribing.

 

[jonb]

Chris,

I hope you're ready for the next project 2 Yards of 60" camo is on its way to me. I may just bring it up if we do the workshop.

I think the texture of the same material used for Summer BDU's could look nice...

bizarre.

 

[jonb]

Chris,

I hope you're ready for the next project 2 Yards of 60" camo is on its way to me. I may just bring it up if we do the workshop.

I think the texture of the same material used for Summer BDU's could look nice...

bizarre. there was a crf at the ims show with desert camo cloth on all of the plastic and desert camo tires from tomahawk.

 

[TunaTodd]

I saw that dirtbike when it was in Long Beach.....pretty cool. Tygaboy this is by far the coolest thread I've read in a while...Thanks for a well written and photographed step by step.

 

[drizz]

bizarre. there was a crf at the ims show with desert camo cloth on all of the plastic and desert camo tires from tomahawk.

I think the cool twist that will make this one a first is that it's a carbon-kevlar base AND the material we'll be using is the same exact material used for Army BDU's.

Too frickin cool.

 

[tygaboy]

Plug fab begins!

Ah, nothing like the smell of epoxy in the morning...
I was able to start on the plug yesterday and decided to layup the underside using the splash mold.
Remember, the plug will start off as a replica of the stock tank but then I'll go after narrowing it and re-designing / re-shaping how the top and bottom join together. Given that, I don't need to worry about the quality and finish of these initial plug components - they'll end up bondo'd and hot glued and who knows what else done to them. At this point, it's all about getting the parts put together so I can start final plug shaping.
So, Merry Christmas, Zoran! It ain't pretty, but it'll do!

 

[tygaboy]

the other side...

 

[tygaboy]

Template time

Time to start thinking about how to lay up the composite in the mold. As before, there's no 'right' way to go about this. And since we're still talking about the plug, I'm not too concerned about quality. So this is a great time to learn how the composite wants to fit into this particular shape.
Unfortunately, you can't just take one big piece of carbon fiber and lay it into the mold and get a perfect fit, no seams, etc. Carbon fiber, Kevlar and fiberglass fabrics are woven materials and as such, have what's called a 'draping' quality. That is, how well do they conform to compound contours? Different weave patterns and weights of fabric have different draping characteristics.
Want a home demo of the challenge we're about to deal with? OK, take piece of cloth and try to make it lay flat all over your gas tank with no overlap, bunches, etc. Can't be done. You'll see places where it bunches up or overlaps itself and if you make that spot fit well, it'll lift off of other places. Since woven materials, at least the ones we're working with, have no elastic qualities, we have to coax them into conforming to all the complex shapes we have on this gas tank.
So in order to get the material to lay nicely in the mold, it's necessary to make a set of templates to figure out the shapes of the pieces we need to use to combat this situation.
I start off with a section of newspaper. It has poor draping characteristics so I know if I can get a decent fit in newpaper, the composites (which can flex and shift a bit) will be fine.
So, I take a section - it's already folded in half - and I tape it into the mold with the seam running down the centerline of the mold...

 

[tygaboy]

Do a bit of cutting and trimming, make the needed relief cuts, add other sections as needed to cover the entire side of the mold...

 

[tygaboy]

Then just unfold the section(s) to see how it lays into the entire mold...

 

[tygaboy]

Pull the parts out and I have a set of templates that I can transfer onto the fiberglass.
Time to prep the mold with a few coats of Partall and a coat of PVA. Four layers of fiberglass lay up later and we'll have the top part of of our plug! I hope to get to the layup later today.

I'm sure I'm going to go with a different template design for the final carbon pieces as the seam locations on these aren't going to be the most attractive. But I'll tell you, this SV shape is going to be tough because it's essentially one great big curved surface with no great places to put seams that will look particularly good and ALSO make it easy to lay up. My SV/MV tank has a lot more flat-ish surfaces that dictated pretty obvious seam locations. But again, this is just the plug so I'm not going to agonize over it just yet.
If the tank were going to be painted, seam location would not matter and I could just make templates that made the lay up as easy as possible.
These are the times when I wish I was more of a 'Function over Form' kind of person...but I've always been a sucker for a pretty face so I'd like to make it look good in raw carbon. We'll see.
Anyway - here are the plug templates, ready to be used to cut the fiberglass.

 

[lizard]

God, I love this thread!!!

 

[mr5parkle]

can't wait to see the actual cf part

 

[lizard]

hmm, maybe I could fab a larger capacity gas tank for my Monster for sport-touring purposes. An extra gallon would make a big difference.

hmm...

 

[tygaboy]

Now that we're approaching the 'important work' - making the plug - I thought I'd step back and give you a quick tour of 'Magnolia Composites'. It's just a corner of my garage with a fairly large work table for cutting fabric and a roll-around cart where I do most of the layup work. Most supplies are stored in the cart while the fabric rolls live on the table. I'll eventually build some sort of fabric rack/storage but for now, this is working fine.

 

[tygaboy]

And here are the primary tools of the trade. First, the all important 'self healing' mat. If you've never seen one of these, they're pretty cool - cut them with a razor blade, etc and they show no sign of it. Which is great because when cutting fiberglass or carbon fiber, I use a rotary cutter - that's the cutting wheel you see in the pic. Just press firmly and roll across the fabric and you're good to go. You can cut nice curves and not worry about pulling the weave out of alignment. And the mat doesn't even notice.
You can get the mat and rotary cutter at most any fabric store. Personally, I shop at JoAnn's Fabrics...!
Regular scissors (the red handled ones) are always handy and I often use them for last minute, in-the-mold- adjustment cuts.
The orange handle pair are shears that are a must-have for cutting the kevlar. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, cuts kevlar. Forget the wife's nice kitchen scissors - I showed those to the Kevlar once and I swear I could hear laughter...Get a nice pair of these shears. It's still slow going but they get the job done.

 

[tygaboy]

So let's cut some fiberglass using our pattern. Unroll the 'glass and lay the pattern on top. I try and get the pattern onto the 'glass at a 45 degree angle as the weave doesn't fray at the cut edge when cut at that angle. Keeps things a bit tidier when doing the lay up and it's less messy as the roll doesn't fray when it's being handled.

 

[tygaboy]

Using the rotary cutter, just roll around the pattern, make the relief cuts, etc and in seconds, we have our first piece, ready for lay up.

 

[tygaboy]

I've already waxed and PVA'd the mold (and bolted it together after drilling a few holes in the flange...but more on that when we get to the production mold). Then I mix up a 'pot' of epoxy (OK, I use small paper cups from the supermarket...), paint a pretty thick layer into the mold and start laying in the fiberglass pieces. Again, no real rules - I just try and remember how many layers I've put where as it's easy to forget. That's why I always like to cut all the pieces I need and account for total layers prior to doing the lay up. That way, once all my pieces are gone, I know I've got the thickness I want.

So, here's a pic of today's lay up 'in process'. It's nice to work with 'glass as while I'm wetting it out, it's easy to see where it's fully saturated because it goes clear - not so with carbon fiber or kevlar. And any air pockets that form are easily seen and can be chased out to an edge or be eliminated in other manners such as making another relief cut, etc.
Now it's just a matter of lay in the next piece, wet it out, lay in another piece, wet it out and repeat until done.