Bodcast: Weekend Edition!

Trying to finish up the fairings this weekend, and I think I got pretty far today. I started with getting the U shaped piece integrated into the rear fairings.
Now that the fairings are securely bolted in place, I can mark where the U shape will go and notch out the fairings.

Cut away some material so the U shape fits in there. Here I've marked where the fairings meet up so I can cut away the extra thats hanging down below. I taped a 1/8" drill bit to the top of the center rib to get the correct spacing between it and the U shape.

Since the mark was above the fairings, I cut about 1/4" below that to allow for the thickness of the fairings.

After cutting, I roughed up the U shape and glued it in place, positioning it with some cardboard spacers.

Once that was glued, I had to turn the entire thing upside down so I could apply more plasti-paste to the underside of the fairings to join them together and strengthen areas like the U shape. I notched a piece of scrap wood to help keep everything aligned correctly.

I taped the seams at the top to give the paste some backing while it sets up.

Here's the seam from the underside.

A shot after applying more goop.

And the same underside shot of the seam with the goop.

I joined the fairings together at the bottom as well (The bike is still upside down).

Once everything set up, I could remove it from the bike as one piece.

Ta-daah!

The piece is really starting to take on some weight now, and it's pretty solid.

Looking back, I probably could have molded the rear fairing as one piece, and just cut the center slot and add the U shape, which would have made it more uniform. But I didn't really know the exact width when I started, and it was easier to add the mounting rails this way. I think it came out pretty well. I probably have one more bondo/sanding session before I can throw some primer at it. Hopefully I can take care of that today.