Softail Bagger

[HarleyCruiser]

Originally Posted by mustangGTS

Very nice work..... having done some glass work, I understand the amount of labor you are putting in here.....

Congrats on turning your vision to reality......

Very sexy machine..

Russ

Thanks been working on it a long time, no hurry that is the nice thing about doing a little at a time on a fairly stock HD.
I clear coated the bags, repainted the rear fender, and threw them on the bike so I can ride it up to Maxton North Carolina to the LSR races this weekend.
I am interested in seeing how the bags are on a long trip.
I have been spending way to much time working on the bike and not enough time riding it.

[HarleyCruiser]

Well I started working on my front fender again. I took a little break, been a month since I worked on it.
I thought I had a fender set and bags sold, so I had been pushing to get everything done. My buyer has disappeared.
I also had a fiberglass guy that was going to make my molds for me, for a set of bags. He got out of the glass business. So the urgency to get everything done in a hurry is gone.
I have decided to finish this as a one off project.
The bags and rear fender are so complicated, so hard to make, that the cost, time required makes them to expensive for this economy.
So it looks like I am out of the Softail Bagger business as fast as I got into it:-)
Here is what I am doing this weekend. I will post more this week as I go along making the mold for the front fender.
The front fender plug is finished, it is more Bondo than glass, so it is too thick to be used as a fender. This is the final shape, although the cast fender will be trimmed smaller.
It is several different colors because the paint has been sacrificial in sanding.
You paint on a solid color and as you sand you can see when you are sanding through that layer.
It has been sanded with 220, 320 400 and 1000 wet, it is pretty smooth although it is hard to tell in this photo.
You wax it several times, 6-7 coats with a good paste wax.

The wax help the mold from sticking to the plug.
Then you apply several coats of PVA mold release.
PVA is polyvinyl alcohol, you spray it on and it dries as a thin layer of plastic film. The wax keep the PVA from sticking to the plug.


The green stuff it modeling clay. The mold will be two pieces, so it is easy to remove the plug and easy to remove the final fender when you go to cast it.
You will notice little holes in the clay, this is to line up the two halfs, when they are done.
I could probably get away with a one piece mold, but do not want to take the chance of not being able to remove it.
I got into this problem before and ruined my original fender. Think I mentioned that in previous post.
You glass half the fender and up the clay to make a flange. Then when the glass dries you remove the clay and glass the other side of the fender plug. And you have a two piece mold with flanges that you bolt together, when you go to cast your fender.
I need to run tomorrow and get some mold tooling gel. The tooling gel is orange resin that you use for molds. it is orange so you can see when you put your black gel on for your final cast part.
So I will post as I go along.

[JCourneyaP]

Keep the pics coming! When we going to see it all done??

[HarleyCruiser]

Originally Posted by JCourneyaP

Keep the pics coming! When we going to see it all done??

JP I picked up the orange tooling gel and plan on working the mold this weekend will get some photo along the way.
Humm when is it going to be done, well the front fender that I screwed to make this plug, up took me a year, the seat took a year, sat on the shelf for a year. The rear fender took two years to get on the bike, then another year for the lights. The license plate took six months, the air cleaner took a year, for the back, and a another year to carve the eagle, and get it on the bike.
The bags I have been working on for a year and a half still need more work.
Most of these project were over lapping. So how many years are we up to now?
I still want to do something with a gas tank, still kicking around ideas on that. Maybe a glass cover to the one I have or stretching and making a custom dash on the one I have on a shelf. Saw a real cool gas guage, a glass tube that runs down the side of the gas tank.
Probably take a year or two for that. I want to make a custom cowling, windshield, kicking ideas around on that, thinking of a stationary with a moving headlight. That would probably take a year or two. Want custom floor boards, don’t know if I want to learn aluminum casting, and do a custom set from lost foam casting or make a set out of brass, rod, with aluminum braces.
Want to carve feathers on my eagle.
Plus I still need to finish the front fender, finish the backs of the bags, repaint everything. Maybe do something custom.
Figure if I live to be eighty, I might get most of it done. Probably think of some more stuff on the way, so, long story short, probably never;-)

[EZE RIDER]

Very interesting. Great work!

[HarleyCruiser]

Well I got half of my mold done, working on the other half now.
I gave the PVA overnight to dry, and then you put on the first coat of glass. The first coat is orange mold tooling gel, it is thicker than regular resin and is orange so that when the mold is done and you are doing the fender and putting on the black gel you can see how thick the black is by the contrasting color.
Tooling gel is also more durable so that the mold holds up better for multiple casts. It is really best to spray the tooling gel on, but I don’t have a gel gun so I use a paint brush.
Using a paint brush you sometimes get wrinkles in the coat, and on the first half I did get some, but will worry about that later.
The wrinkles are called alligators, and if you saw them you would understand why.
I think the problem was that I did not get my PVA thick enough, and the resin caused a chemical reaction with my paint and caused it to lift.
They are negatives, (recessed) on the mold and will be positives on the cast fender so I will just sand them out when the fender is cast.
Here is the tooling gel that has been painted on the plug, and the modeling clay mold separation flange dam.


Then you lay up the glass after the gel is dry. It usually takes two coats to get the gel coat thick enough.
Here is the mold half after the glass has been layer on.

After the half is done then you remove the mold flange dam.
The heat of the glass kicking loosened it so it falls out pretty easy.

[HarleyCruiser]

And here is the other side of the mold, it is pretty much the same as the other side. You spray on the PVA, let it dry.
Here is the gel coat going on.


Then you put on the glass, and then give it a couple of days to really set before popping the molds.
I will get back to you when I do that.
That is the really cool part when they pop apart.
Just want to add, and really stress to be careful using resin or anything with Strine in it or any Volatile Organic Compounds, (VOC’s). I use a forced air respirator. Otherwise you should be outdoors to do any glass work.
It will make you stoupid.(SIC)

[JCourneyaP]

HC keep em coming. You dont happen to be a "Shop Teacher" by profession?

[HarleyCruiser]

Originally Posted by JCourneyaP

HC keep em coming. You dont happen to be a "Shop Teacher" by profession?

No, not a shop teacher, I guess it is ok to talk here; I am an editor for a regional automotive newspaper.
I just find it fascinating to learn and do new stuff.
So is that what you do? is that why you ask?
If I get some time, I am going to pop the molds in the next day or two.
Will shoot some photos.

[JCourneyaP]

No. I spent many years trying to get out of school. I dont wanna go back.

Not only are you learning new things and putting it to work... You are also sharing the outcome. In a sense teaching.

Some folks are natural teachers but just never took it up as a profession.

Keep it coming.