Recent content by Nikolai

How much time do you have up here? Do you have stuff planned already?

Progress will be slow for a while. Summer camping season is here and I have a bunch of other stuff I need to do.

Powdercoat shop did an awesome job sandblasting the frame. Got it home and sand blown off. Cranked the heat up in my shop to 75 for about 4 hours and then started priming. The green self etching can did way better on the finger nail scratch test compared to the white primer and it sprays nicer...

The paint won’t be anything fancy as I have more welding to do on the frame. Gas tank tabs, cooler tabs, oil tank tabs, body panel tabs ect. I’m just going to spray it with an aerosol primer for now so it doesn’t rust out on me. Eventually down the road when it’s finished I’ll spray it with a...

Finally got the running board traction done, a job I was not looking forward too and also putting off. Multiple years ago I had cut the shanks off the screws with the plan to just tack weld the heads. Fast forward to tonight and I thought about how long it would take to get each screw positioned...

Thanks. Lots of work left but headed in the right direction at least.

Added the final 0.22 lbs with the chaincase side. Final weight for all the enclosure stuff is 5.8 lbs. that’s all the aluminum pieces, heat shields, and HDPE pieces.

And another 0.15 lbs. Decided to cover all the aluminum with HDPE. A little extra weight now but it will be way lighter in the snow. Eventually down the the road I could use these for templates and make carbon fiber panels to replace the aluminum and HDPE both and drop a couple pounds but it is...

Duplicate post.

Added another .41 lbs, decided to put HDPE over the aluminum in front of the drivers to prevent snow build up. Undecided if I’ll do the sides with the chaincase and bearing holders.

Solid rivets are the way to go, if I had more clearance for the motor and didn’t have to install the front panels after installing the motor I would use them.

Side panels are finished. Made the left and right sides the same. Maybe not the most attractive but it’s done and it would be easy to make full height carbon fiber panels later on if I ride and it turns out I need more coverage. At least I can move forward to other things now. I did however at...

Decided to try the HDPE thing one more time before spending money on CF cloth. Made some pieces of angle out of .032 aluminum, .07 lbs for both. These would be needed regardless of what material I used on the sides. Sandwiched between the top sheet and tube for a little cleaner look. Got...

2nd attempt, 2-layers of cloth, squeegeed the excess resin off and let cure. It’s about as stiff as the 1/16 HDPE, maybe a little less but for nearly half the weight of HDPE and a little more than a 1/3 of the weight of .040 aluminum that’s not bad. Carbon fiber 7.83 grams HDPE 13.98 grams...

Huge fail trying to sandwich it, the excess resin didn’t squish out at all. I’ll do another test piece and squeegee it like normal and not sandwich it. Also 1 layer will not be enough, too flimsy. I’ll do 2 layers on the next test. it peeled right off the melamine board and the other side...