Cut hole, fill, mold to shape in ABS motorcycle fairing

Anything goes in the world of fiberglass and plastic

User avatar

Settled In
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:51 am

Country:
USA
PostPosted: Mon Aug 17, 2015 6:45 am
I also got the replacement fairing under primer.
FAIRING.JPG

The trouble with this piece is the same trouble I had with the original fairing. There is a reaction with the factory base coat along the edges where it goes from bare ABS to the factory base coat. I don't like this...but I dealt with it the last time so I know I can beat it. I just need to take this lesson for the next one and go all the way down to ABS on the whole thing before I do body work....that would take a lot less time than messing with this.
REACTION1.JPG

REACTION2.JPG

The runs and funky coverage here is not surprising or troublesome to me because I laid it on super thick in these areas to fill a couple of deep spots that I need to block out.

User avatar

Settled In
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:51 am

Country:
USA
PostPosted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 11:34 am
No pics today. But last night, as I started to work on these funky spots, I quickly came to the conclusion that this fairing needed to be completely stripped. I'm not liking what's going on with the base factory paint. Not sure what's going on here...but it just feels too soft to count on it. Much worse than the first one I did.

So I set it aside to work on the fender. You know...get something accomplished before I spun out of control over the thought of starting on the fairing yet again. I managed to get the fender blocked out. It looks good. I had a couple pinholes to deal with. I put some filler over them and set it aside to tackle the fairing. I put about an hour of DA time into it before a beer started sounding like a way better idea.

It was.

User avatar

Settled In
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:51 am

Country:
USA
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2015 6:23 am
Here's something interesting. I found, in a lot of places on this fairing, that the primer has bonded to the base coat well, but the base coat is actually lifting away from the ABS. Not sure if this was poorly prepped from the factory, or if the primer has rewet the base coat and caused it to let go....either way, I found that scraping this stuff off with my thumb nail or a plastic putty knife was much quicker than trying to sand it off. A combination of the two was helpful in these areas.
peel 1.JPG
peel 2.JPG

And here she is...naked. I've got just a little bit of filler work to do to once again smooth out those holes I patched from the turn signal removal. Then, back to primer.
sanded.JPG

User avatar

Board Moderator
Posts: 6672
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 7:00 pm
Location: central Ohio
Country:
USA
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2015 9:06 am
You did the right thing getting rid of anything that was "soft" like that. My guess is your coating was too "hot" going over whatever coating was on there. Seems like I just never trust any coating on any composite parts like this and end up sanding/scraping/stripping it off.
Metal, wood, fiberglass, we work it all... www.furniturephysicians.com We can restore the irreplaceable!

User avatar

Settled In
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:51 am

Country:
USA
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2015 11:10 am
Darrel...I do have at least one more complete bike like this one in my future....my own bike.

Is there a better method to get rid of paint on ABS parts than a DA, blocks and elbow grease? I'm guessing that the answer is no - that anything that's hot enough to destroy the paint will probably be hot enough to destroy the ABS.

User avatar

Board Moderator
Posts: 6672
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 7:00 pm
Location: central Ohio
Country:
USA
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2015 3:22 pm
Well, here's the deal.... there are "some" safe for fiberglass strippers out there but alas, almost any of those bite too fast to control on ABS. Heck, even those strippers can start melting the fiberglass surface with the cheaper sandable gel coats that are in use now. So no, sanding when done carefully as you are doing now is about the safest way without changing overall surface profiles. You might try and "break" (we do this in wood stripping when we are working with fragile veneers just underneath the coating) the coating somewhat with a quick washdown using acetone. Being able to break the coating bond might make your sanding at least faster and a little cleaner. The acetone should flash off fast without affecting the underlying plastic. Uhhhh.... watch acetone... no smoking, sparks,etc. near where you are working..... or.... :flatten:
Metal, wood, fiberglass, we work it all... www.furniturephysicians.com We can restore the irreplaceable!

User avatar

Settled In
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:51 am

Country:
USA
PostPosted: Fri Aug 21, 2015 8:11 am
Yeah..twice I've seen acetone flash fires from static when people are holding a rag and pushing down the plunger on one of those safety cans. It went out as soon as the plunger slapped shut when they pull their hand back. Scary stuff. That thing that you're warned about, but never see.

But, you know, I'm only doing one more fairing. I'll just nut up and sand it off. If I were doing more, I'd probably try to consider something quicker.



Settled In
Posts: 34
Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2013 2:21 am

Country:
USA
PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2015 2:40 am
Hey man I'm a newbie myself and have nothing to offer except a "nice job". I too have had some interesting "learning" experiences and I no doubt will have plenty more :). Anyway, the bike/paint is turning out really nice!

User avatar

Settled In
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:51 am

Country:
USA
PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:00 am
Thanks, IPT. This has been all learning curve. Frustrating and fascinating at the same time.

This weekend Texas finally decided to cool off a bit. A lot. It was looking like low 70's temps for Saturday morning. So I thought...maybe I could do two batches of parts on Saturday and two on Sunday since it wasn't going to be scorching in my garage by noon. In fact, I woke up to 68 degrees at 5 AM.

I applied all the lessons learned from the last few shots. I waited till first light before I opened the garage door to spray down the floor and move my bike out, shutting off the lights during the process - to not attract the bugs - and then closed the door. I waited for the sun to actually be up before I opened the garage back up a little, turned on the lights, and started spraying.

I started with the replacement fairing, the headlight bezel, and the new, fiberglass rear fender.

As I was spraying the fender, I noticed a pinhole that I hadn't seen previously. Not sure how I missed it. But there it was...so...on the final coat of white I tried to hit it a little harder on that spot to see if it would fill. It wouldn't...and I ended up with a run there. So I wiped it with my finger to get rid of it....knowing I needed to go back and sand that area, fill it touch up the paint.
pinhole.JPG

I didn't think to take pics during the repair process, but it worked very well. I simply feathered the white back with 400 grit and filled the pinhole. Here's a shot of it after I had filled and touched up the white.
fender touched up.JPG

And finally, a shot of the fender my buddy sent me after he picked it up yesterday. He spent the evening building a wiring harness for the new turn signal/tail lights. I can see some areas that he could cut and buff better...but it's his bike, and he's in charge of that. And he says I'm way more picky than he is. If he's happy with it, I'm good.
fender assembly.JPG

It looks as if he just laid the license plate bracket in there, as it's not sitting level as it will when it's installed properly.

User avatar

Board Moderator
Posts: 6672
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 7:00 pm
Location: central Ohio
Country:
USA
PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:09 am
Nice.... yeah, it's his bike so the cut and buff is definitely on him. It's always something he can do a little more detailing on later as well. Looks like you're getting things figured out pretty well on this stuff.... keep it up.... :goodjob:
Metal, wood, fiberglass, we work it all... www.furniturephysicians.com We can restore the irreplaceable!
PreviousNext

Return to Fiberglass and Plastic

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 45 guests