Custom Seat Cowl

[lawlberg]

One of the least sporty looking pieces on this bike is the seat. Everyone bi*ches and moans about the comfort, but for me, it just looks slow. I found a couple of cowls online that are okay - but I don't like a cowl that still shows part of the seat underneath it, and I feel weird shelling out 300 bucks for a piece of fiberglass - so being slightly handy and having dabbled in fiberglass before, I decided to make my own.

I started out by mocking up a cowl with the most common building material I have at my house - empty beer boxes.

From this I had a failed attempt at making a reverse mold using spray foam and an empty box. So I picked up some firm insulation foam from Home Depot and started over, carving it up by hand.

I wrapped it in cling wrap (on the seat) and fiberglassed it - which was a bit trickier than I'd remembered, but wound up working out.

After the first coat, I beefed it up a bit in a few areas and sanded it down. Moved on to bondo.

So here's where I am with that - still have a lot of sanding to do - but it slides over the rear of the seat and locks in place when the seat clicks in. It's big enough to keep a light jacket, a couple of beers, registration papers, wallet/phone. We'll see how she looks when I get her all sanded down.

Next after sanding, I'll be painting it - probably going with a Matte black to match most of the bike, and putting a huge red tuning forks decal 7"x7" on the right side wrapping over to the center. Cover that in a coat or two of clear and I'll be pretty happy. Pictures to come as I get closer to finishing.

 

[PFD023]

love it!!!

 

[Motogiro]

I feel itchy after reading this!
Great job!

 

[Ohendo]

Pic links are broken, at least to me. Would love to see what you were able to come up with.

Edit: They're working, my bad. They were being blocked here at work. Opened just fine in Tapatalk.

 

[lawlberg]

Had volleyball last night and a date tonight so I don't think I'll get it sanded down for a couple of days - but that's fine, it's giving the bondo a bit more time to harden up, I think one spot may have been really thick or light on the hardener and is taking a while to get solid. Here's the sticker I've got on the way - 7''x7'' - going over black and under a nice layer of clear.

 

[lawlberg]

Update: Lots of sanding dust all over my house - I'm coughing more than normal - and it's getting smooth. After these pictures I put another very thin layer of filler on but I think I'm almost there!

 

[PFD023]

For gawds sakes wear an N95 mask!!!!!

 

[lawlberg]

First coat of paint is dry - fitted on and sized up - looks decent (still have some small imperfections I should smooth out, but I was trying to see if the paint/primer would cover it up. No contrast with the seat/grab bars though so I'm contemplating another color/carbon or kevlar wrap - we'll see.

 

[lawlberg]

Still need the sticker, it won't be here until next week though, so I went and put on a coat of clear (matte) on top of many layers of filler, primer and black. not perfect, - but it's as smooth as my patience will allow.

From the back

And a front view

 

[motojoe122]

It looks great! How does it feel while riding?

 

[lawlberg]

It looks great! How does it feel while riding?

Feels great. Sits/locks in solid, no worries about it moving.

I'd started scootching back a bit in my seat to have better riding posture in corners, so now with that I just scootch back until I feel it, it's about perfectly in line with the existing rise in the seat, and there she is.

Oh - something you can't see - I've lined the inside with black duct tape - mainly because there were a couple of rough spots of fiberglass and other areas of fiberglass that didn't have resin on them, so they hadn't hardened up and would still be leaving fibers on there.

Side note - I rode to work with it on Friday and left my tank bag at home - got a take out box from the pizza place we went to and was able to fit a small box with 3 slices in my cowl.