Aesthetics Part II

Well, as we know from the previous post I put some gold carbon fiber vinyl wrap on the petrol tank's trim:

Note the 'Don't drive after drinking wine' on the tank's label. No other mention of any other alcoholic beverage, that always makes me laugh. Middle class 'winos' are well and truly stuffed!  

Although it wasn't something easy to wrap, to balance the gold bit out I wrapped the rear grab rail. Not perfect, a few bubbles that won't go, probably better doing something like this in three parts, top and then the sides. I could do it again if I wish to but it's good enough, It will likely be swapped out for a storage box most of the time anyway:

Before:

After:

  

I removed the main side fairing panel to add to this (the other side will be mirrored to match of course).

Every body's going the matte black vinyl approach or the shiny gold when it comes to the wrap these days (mainly on cars). So that's why I decided on trusty carbon. & since 98% of the bike is black, black carbon on the fairing, with a gold logo / design of my choosing to balance it out.

Matt black wouldn't of worked with the rest of the bike gloss! Also carbon works in this way like on a car bonnet with the rest of the car black. And I also won't need to change it's colour on the log book! Wrapping the whole bike carbon at this stage just seems a bit ott, like some wide boy & his '96 Vauxhall Corsa maybe? So I won't.

First up what logo / design should I choose? Well I thought this one fitting (of course!) & printed it out onto a piece of card to use as a template on the gold sheet:

 I was originally going to cut the shape out of the black carbon wrap, then put some gold on to the fairing 1st of all, then the black on over the top with the rampant 'Larry the Lion' we'll call him  for our purposes here, showing through from underneath. However, knowing that the wrap will stretch it wasn't a good idea as we would end up with a slightly disfigured Larry!

Deciding against having a lion on the side of my bike, looking like it had been on the drink for a week, I decided to stick it on over the top of the black wrap later on. 

Cut out ready to go:

 After cutting the template out, I used a thin permanent pen to draw around on the top gold part of the wrap because the back is shiny and you can't write to it! After you have cut it out you will be left with some of the black line around the edge. To remove this, find and pester a female of the species for some nail polish remover and dip it on the tip of a cotton bud & rub it off. You can see where it left a mark on the board while being removed. You can spray deodorant on the cotton tip as a 'low rent' alternative, the alcohol will remove it but the design will smell of the fragrance of course afterward for a while. Put this aside for later on:

Right now, to wrap the main side fairing. Same method again, heat gun. Leave some around the edges when you cut to size to give you something to wrap around to make it look seamless. It doesn't need to look pretty on the other side, you can't see it. Just make sure you pull it around enough so the front looks as flawless as possible and the bubbles and creases are taken / smoothed out. The more heat you can put on the better for it to form down the contours properly / nicely. Just remember too much heat will not only melt the wrap but the plastic fairing as well! Notch it up slowly to get a good heat. Some parts of the edges need to trimmed with a knife that are designed to lock into place on the bike etc & some screw / bolt holes need to be pierced:

 Finished:

Right now to add our rampant Larry the Lion to the faring. Line your design up first then stick it on. This was important with mine as it comes in multiple parts:

 Finished, had to apply a bit of heat to get part of it to form down the vent contour nicely :

I'll admit, I felt a bit like Niel Buchanan from Art Attack doing this but, I'm quite happy with the results. Wondering whether it needs anything more but, it's not too overdone & stupid looking just as it is.  Now I have to do the same to the other side fairing & the logo has to be mirrored, so I will just turn the template around in the opposite direction to do this.

The vents seem a bit vacant when on the bike, so I'll borrow a wide boy (as I call them) car modders vent trick & add some vent mesh underneath for a couple of quid. I can't find any gold mesh so I'll spray it gold to match the theme. That should make it look a bit better.

  

I'm also pondering wrapping the lower part of the fairing on the bike all gold or not to add a bit of overall balance ? I'll see when these go back on. 

Installing the mesh.

Use a pair of snips to cut a suitable sized piece of your mesh from the strip, I trust you are clever enough to know a tape measure or rule could help you with that? Better to use a pair of tin snips over something like a hacksaw to cut the mesh. After, use a permanent pen to mark the mesh against the vent, as you will have to bend it's sides slightly to fit better. 

Use an straight edge like a desk or a piece of wood to bend along the lines by bending and tapping / hitting the mesh with a pair of pliers or similar.

After spraying with gold paint we can use our heat gun on a fairly low setting to almost instantly dry it ready to fit straight away.

Fixing it is the problem as the plastic is too thin to use a small screw like you would on a car bumper for example, so it will have to be bonded with a glue. 1st of all I've used a No Nails type glue as it's strong enough and thick and gloopy enough to bond to the plastic and up in to the mesh itself. Just a few blobs here and there as you will want to add something else a bit stronger like cyano, UHU or 2 part epoxy in some of the space later on as the No Nails works well as a quick strong fix but I would be unsure whether the bumps on the road would work it loose without another stronger glue over time? 

You will have to apply a lot of this though as it doesn't have the volume the No Nails does, our reason for choosing it in the 1st place! You'll need lots of masking tape to hold the mesh down taught while it dries, I would give the glue at least overnight to dry solid.

Of course if you have the 2 part epoxy with the kicker for the quick setting you could go all out on using it straight away but, it's the thickness of it that's a concern. You would likely have to use half the contents of the syringe tubes to get a blob of glue as thick as the No Nails we've used here, which is why I've chose to go with a combination.

Silver or gold mesh? Well to be honest it looks good without the gold paint but, it's getting the gold treatment anyway: