68 replies to this topic

[laughin in a windstorm]

if you are feeling like you are tipping forward you just need to remove a relatively small area of foam at the rear of the standard curve where you sit, use a pen to draw even marks on both sides and then use an electric carving knife if you have one (I bought a cheap one from argos a while ago and it works great), but my seat was done many years ago and I used a very sharp samurai sword to cut it, after shaping by cutting you can use a drum sander in a drill to smooth down the foam and do any fine adjustments to the shape, 'tip' don't use anything too aggressive to sand down the foam as it can grip and bite more out of the surface than you want (bad experiences), time gives better results,

I took the square edges off of mine as they gave me a burning sensation on long rides

[fixitsan]

if you are feeling like you are tipping forward you just need to remove a relatively small area of foam at the rear of the standard curve where you sit, use a pen to draw even marks on both sides and then use an electric carving knife if you have one (I bought a cheap one from argos a while ago and it works great), but my seat was done many years ago and I used a very sharp samurai sword to cut it, after shaping by cutting you can use a drum sander in a drill to smooth down the foam and do any fine adjustments to the shape, 'tip' don't use anything too aggressive to sand down the foam as it can grip and bite more out of the surface than you want (bad experiences), time gives better results,

I took the square edges off of mine as they gave me a burning sensation on long rides

Very helpful, thanks

[laughin in a windstorm]

not as far advanced as I'd hoped to be due to intermittent other things happening at inconvenient times,

the filling and shaping has been a boring job as usual. fill - rub - fill - rub - fill - rub - blah de blah etc., it starts with dry sanding with a very coarse grit to get to the desired shape,

when the desired shape is seemingly achieved I go onto wet rubbing with a finer but still quite rough grit, the water running down the sides helps to show any uneven bits, it does this by following reflections by eye, if they distort other than on specific curves then it is not yet correct,

once this is declared reasonably ok'ish, I dry it all off and use some sacrificial paint to cover the areas of filler, (in this instance it was yellow as it is the only aerosol I had with enough paint in it to do the job), I do this as it gives a one colour finish which shows up any areas that are still not right, the filler itself has slight differences in shade from mixing and can give the illusion of uneven surfaces,

this is a set of very complex curves that need to be as similar on both sides as is possible,

the yellow shows one small area that is too high and this will get lost as I rub down the entire area until the yellow has all gone, again it is a time consuming job but patience rewards 

 

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[dapleb]

Noice.

Still got da rotts too LIAW.

[laughin in a windstorm]

Noice.

Still got da rotts too LIAW.

 thanks, yes we still have Rottweilers, three at the moment and a very small Tibetan Spaniel/ Pekingese cross that has a bark to make up for her size (all rescue dogs)

 

I have managed to get the priming done on the tank though not without some problems, I used a 2 pack primer filler but the actual filler I used to create the shape seems to have been a relative of the Aero chocolate bar, it was full of bubbles which kept being 'opened up' between rub downs, so I'm hoping the primer filler has got into all of them so they will be no longer troublesome,

I have to leave it a few days to harden properly now, besides that we are forecasted for lots of rain over the next few days so I 'll have a go at my seat cover as it arrived much earlier than expected

[laughin in a windstorm]

the priming seems ok at the moment but I'm giving it a few days to fully harden before carrying on

 

the rubbing away of the unwanted paint

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the new seat cover arrived so I got on with fitting that, it is a genuine YAMAHA cover and they don't give much overlap for fixing the edges down, the new cover has a dimpled effect where as my original was just a smooth grain design, still it looks better than holes,

you can see where I rounded off the edges of the foam over 20 years ago, it still holds shape nicely

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one thing that is disappointing about the new cover is that the manufacturer had folded it into the packaging and it has left a few crease marks, I hope they will come out with some time

 

[laughin in a windstorm]

the weather has been rubbish so I have not been able to do a lot, though I was able to rub down and re-paint the 'frame covers' I made that cover the coils under the tank, one was slightly damaged in the bikes crash

[laughin in a windstorm]

frame covers  

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[laughin in a windstorm]

I took advantage of a good day and got the primer rubbed down, it took 4 hours due to the previously mentioned filler problems and having to put more 'primer filler' on to fill up the bubble holes in the body filler, (I can now commit a crime as my finger prints are all gone  ) , anyhow it all turned out ok and I was able to get the blue base coat and some single pack clear coat on,

I have used a single pack clear as I will need to rub it down to create a 'key' to be able to put my 'stripes' on, you can't rub down metallics as you damage them, and if I used a two pack clear coat I would have to wait around six weeks for it to harden properly before spraying the stripes on as it would react (weather and time is running out),

I will eventually finish with a two pack clear coat

 

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