Carbon Fiber Side Covers and Tail Fin...

trianglelaguna wrote: i'll commit to a set of sides and tail

could see if they would make me a CF one of these too

Now that I see what you have been up to all this time I wonder; do you ride now with the assless chaps. You have gone over to the dark side to do a little TP action? lmfao.

porchev914 wrote: My curiosity would be how they would do the stock mounting tabs on the factory sidecovers. From my experience, they appear much more involved than the ZRX pieces. I am also suprised they went with a standard weave instead of the twill weave, normally the twill is prefered for cosmetics. The prices are definitely good for carbon parts, but that is a reflection of the laminate being fiberglass with a single layer of carbon on the face. But really, for cosmetics, that doesn't matter much. I wonder too who is actually doing the composite work, because it looks as though Slingshot Racing is simply the vendor. I would also ask about the specific clear coating they use on the parts after removal, and the prep the parts get prior to coating. It would be important for anyone wanting to top coat them, and a sense of longevity of the factory applied coating.

Tri, I'll toss one of those together for ya I'll need you to come by for a mould fitting though :woohoo:

Well, if you read the posts, one of them said exactly how they did it.
I think the sidecovers on the rex are exactly like the kz ones save the screw on the top which makes them an improvement over the original design, and the nipple as I think the rex has only one has been replace with a pin and aluminum dowel or some such.

I remember your posts on doing these. Is it really hard? Why don´t you come up with some for us. I´d gladly buy them from you and well as everyone else I assume.
I´ll have to read up on your progress, I suppose.
I have seen these pieces on the rexes that I have encountered at various bike rallys. They do look really nice.

talk all the shit you want

we'll see who's ears get cold next time we ride

ROFL, Craigo you really shouldn´t have.

"This is not pure carbon, it is a sheet of carbon with resin and fiberglass. Check out Slingshot Racing website they can explain carbon pieces better. That keeps the price down."

Absolutely true. Fiberglass is sooooo much cheaper than carbon.

"3K carbon fiber with fiber glass backing with epoxy resin coating and high gloss coat."

This actually tells you very little. Cloths come in 3K, 6K, 12K and so on. It is the # of strands in a tow or thread. The higher the #, the thicker or heavier the cloth will be. But its a generality. It would have been much more informative to state the weight of the cloth used. I.E. 4.8 oz/sq yd. or 5.7 oz/sq yd. Since those are both 3K cloths, saying 3K is much too general since those cloths are signifigantly different. The epoxy resin coating AND a high gloss coat is doubling up. So either he isn't stating the process correctly, or the MFG has to do 2 seperate post molding coating processes in order to acheive that high gloss finish. The unknowns though are the surface prep between each of those coatings, and what exactly the "high gloss coating" is. I wonder if the "epoxy resin coating" is a flood coat to fill in pin holes and small surface imperfections? Surface prep is important to bonding of the epoxy coating to the parts moulded surface.

The difficulty of the tabs....Look at the ZRX tabs. They are nice and sturdy, flat on the inside face of the panel. Now look at a Z1/KZ sidecover. The tabs are floating, connected on the edges of the cover. A more complex tab to make (potentially more fabrication steps) and more complex to accurately post bond to the composite sidecover than the ZRX unit.

Those two lines quoted above is the only technical info I found in that thread. I would LOVE to see how a pro shop makes the factory tabs for Z1/KZ composite covers. I really would. I still have sooooo much to learn, its baffling :blink:
I need to remake my first sidecover mould, and I need to make a couple more moulds for the rear tail mounts once I aquire a sacrificial Z1 tail (I still have yours Tri, but Its too nice).

CF does look awefully bad ass though, doesn't it? :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

porchev914 wrote: "This is not pure carbon, it is a sheet of carbon with resin and fiberglass. Check out Slingshot Racing website they can explain carbon pieces better. That keeps the price down."

Absolutely true. Fiberglass is sooooo much cheaper than carbon.

"3K carbon fiber with fiber glass backing with epoxy resin coating and high gloss coat."

This actually tells you very little. Cloths come in 3K, 6K, 12K and so on. It is the # of strands in a tow or thread. The higher the #, the thicker or heavier the cloth will be. But its a generality. It would have been much more informative to state the weight of the cloth used. I.E. 4.8 oz/sq yd. or 5.7 oz/sq yd. Since those are both 3K cloths, saying 3K is much too general since those cloths are signifigantly different. The epoxy resin coating AND a high gloss coat is doubling up. So either he isn't stating the process correctly, or the MFG has to do 2 seperate post molding coating processes in order to acheive that high gloss finish. The unknowns though are the surface prep between each of those coatings, and what exactly the "high gloss coating" is. I wonder if the "epoxy resin coating" is a flood coat to fill in pin holes and small surface imperfections? Surface prep is important to bonding of the epoxy coating to the parts moulded surface.

The difficulty of the tabs....Look at the ZRX tabs. They are nice and sturdy, flat on the inside face of the panel. Now look at a Z1/KZ sidecover. The tabs are floating, connected on the edges of the cover. A more complex tab to make (potentially more fabrication steps) and more complex to accurately post bond to the composite sidecover than the ZRX unit.

Those two lines quoted above is the only technical info I found in that thread. I would LOVE to see how a pro shop makes the factory tabs for Z1/KZ composite covers. I really would. I still have sooooo much to learn, its baffling :blink:
I need to remake my first sidecover mould, and I need to make a couple more moulds for the rear tail mounts once I aquire a sacrificial Z1 tail (I still have yours Tri, but Its too nice).

CF does look awefully bad ass though, doesn't it? :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

Check your PM's

Yeah, the only reason why I want a set. The weight does not matter to me. The rest of the bike is a pig.
Hell, for that what would be wrong with just coating over the actual pieces themselves. You know, a thin strip of fiber and sprayed on over the OEM? That might not be a bad idea if the fiber is thin enough. I am just reaching at straws here.
I have installed some ducati pieces for a friend´s sister. Those were expensive and not perfect in form. To me, and I don´t know how and what problems are involved, I think if you are going to pay top dollar the parts should be in excellent to perfect shape. Yet I know that for my RSX they make carbon fiber hoods and they never line up perfectly. They say the mugen hoods do, I haven´t personally seen one but they are 2500 vs. 500 for one. I would really love to know more as well to make good choices in purchases. These pieces that they are selling at least you see how they are on the bike. This is a good thing. But for the kz the tail and side pieces have ridges and those I would like to keep the integrity of. I think that these pieces might be a heck of a lot more difficult to make. You of all people have much more experience than I do in asserting that.

Doing a carbon wrap over an existing product is an easy way to get the look of carbon without the cost of moulding a full composite part. It is done ALL the time. Several memebers here have done carbon cloth wraps over factory sidecovers, tails, and even tanks. As far as thickness, here is a yardstick to help measure by. One layer of cured 5.9 oz/sq yd 2x2 twill cloth vacuum bagged is approximately .011" thick. Sure it adds a little extra weight, but like you pointed out Saxjonz, our bikes are already pigs, so whats adding another pound or two? With the poor quality composite car parts, there could be alot of things going on there. Cheap parts like that generally come from cheap materials and labor.

The little factory ridges KZ plastics do have can be kept. I believe you are right though, the Z1/KZ parts (at least the sidecovers) represent a more difficult challenge. The ZRX tail on the other hand looks to be much more complicated than the KZ part.

porchev914 wrote: Doing a carbon wrap over an existing product is an easy way to get the look of carbon without the cost of moulding a full composite part. It is done ALL the time. Several memebers here have done carbon cloth wraps over factory sidecovers, tails, and even tanks. As far as thickness, here is a yardstick to help measure by. One layer of cured 5.9 oz/sq yd 2x2 twill cloth vacuum bagged is approximately .011" thick. Sure it adds a little extra weight, but like you pointed out Saxjonz, our bikes are already pigs, so whats adding another pound or two? With the poor quality composite car parts, there could be alot of things going on there. Cheap parts like that generally come from cheap materials and labor.

The little factory ridges KZ plastics do have can be kept. I believe you are right though, the Z1/KZ parts (at least the sidecovers) represent a more difficult challenge. The ZRX tail on the other hand looks to be much more complicated than the KZ part.

I can appreciate that. Gonna give it a shot.