Never really happy with the design of the old one I decided my custombike FastForward deserves a new designed headlight fairing. Here are some pictures of the designing and production process.
Some more pictures
Perfect ! Very nice !
Headlight design looks really good. I like the process photos you posted.
wow, those are some gigantic photos in the first post, and I could not reduce them or back up from them.
From what I could see of the molds, from scanning the different quadrants, it looks good. I would love to try to see a reduced size pictures because I would love to see all of the work that went into building the plugs and the molds.
The second post with the finished parts— AMAZING! beautiful part, and nice design.
Great work!
Just saw the new pics of the making of the part. Great work.
Wow!!! Great Craftmanship!!! well done!!!
beautiful work! you make it look so easy!
Looks nice , I was wonder … you have 3 moulds and on infusion picture i see they are used separately , my question is ho you connect them all?
That looks so cool… I know designing anything is a personal thing. But I have seen loads of street fighter’s with skulls for headlight surrounds or Simpson Helmet shapes ect… But this is one of the few that I could imagine on loads of other bike styles like Super Moto’s or just a modern naked street bike… Nice work and really nice design…
I trimmed the 3 different parts and put them into the 3 molds. Then I reassembled the tool and bonded the parts using small strips of carbon fiber through the backside opening. In case the opening is big enough one can do the final infusion with the assembled tool. But here that was not possible.
Very nice work! I always love seeing those types of progress/process photos as well.
Would you mind sharing info about the actual lights you’re using? I have to design a headlight unit as well, trying to find any suitable lights to keep my options open.
Cheers!
Design Bikes, i was wondering in the picture where it shows templates, are those the templates for the carbon you lay down? Whats the advantage in using so many pieces? also how did you cut them without them fraying? Second question is, with the 3 piece mold, how do you keep seams from showing in your final piece? I am thinking with the multi piece mold there must be a slight crease where the edge of the molds meet?
Since I could`t find these 50mm and 38mm ellipsoid headlights in the USA I ordered from Ebay in Germany.
I always use templates, even with simple molds and since the design of this part is quite complex with hard edges I decided to do the first twill layer with these many templates. To be able to do that properly I use a special carbon fiber twill which is characterized through non-shift properties. It has a slight layer of epoxy binder on one side which keeps the structure in shape and prevents the fabric from losing filaments. You can cut this material very precisely (similar to prepregs) with a roller knife and with a slight mist of spray adhesive on the temlate you can position it very precisely in the mold. If you are accurate you do not see any seam afterwards and you can also determine the direcction of the carbon pattern very easily, e.g. the V-pattern.
Hi, any chance you might be willing to share where one can get this special fabric
Hptextiles has fabrics like this.
Hi Michiel, what’s the exact name of the fabric?
thanks.