I've been musing this over for a little while,

the right hand fairing panel is cracked where I dumped it after riding over gravel, its not major cos I had some mushrooms fitted but it's one of those niggly things that make me wanna rip it off and make it into an 'E'

and I would if I didn't do so many windy motorway miles! I'm currently at an art college and have access to casting plaster and other bits (besides 25kg of casting plaster is about £5-£10) but I was wondering what material I could make it out of, I thought about fibreglass but I have never used it before. I found a site that I can buy a 2 part Polyurethane mix from, just means I'll have to make 2 part mould.

Would PU work? or would fibreglass be easier?

I know I could just replace the panel with one from eBay or repair the panel but I like the idea of being able to knock a few of these up for forum members and to make a bit of cash from ebay

I would stick with fiberglass. Just about all fairings are made from either plastic or fiberglass. I don't know how to use it yet either, but I did pick some supplied up over winter so I could learn how to use it this spring. If you want to make an exact copy of your original fairing you're still going to have to make some kind of mold to lay the fiberglass over. I don't know too much about it more than that though.

You can always patch up the orgional faring, and use that to help make the moulds for the fibreglass / plastic.

Conoral11

making a mould shouldn't be too tricky really, just need some wood, plaster, a bucket and some time

i emailed a company that deals with moulding, plastics and fibreglass and they said use Glass Reinforced Plastic.... fibreglass ^_^

If i get some time, money and effort together I'll try and knock one up and post a 'how to' up


I might well repair what I have at the moment as my headlight fairing is busted too, my right hand indicator has pushed through the plastic where its cracked 

If you want the same shape, repair is simplest.

Polyurethane foam and fiberglass together make a very nice structure, if you want to go to the work involved. Foam core & fiberglass skin, can be much lighter and stiffer than solid glass.

I've been toying for years with the idea of making a cedar-strip fairing (like a cedar strip canoe - wood core and fiberglass over, using nice wood and clear glass/finishes.)

cedar strip would look awesome. I love how those canoes look.

Have you built one?

Not yet - have books, been accumulating wood, have a huge ugly shop-building project that's been dragging on for years (but no loans) that will result in some space to try it. I expect the fairing will come before the boat, as a smaller test case. Got power in last year, about to get water and hook up the indoor outhouse (this becomes more important as your insides age and degrade - enjoy youth while you have it!), and that means I have to have heat sorted by next winter, so there's a prospect of getting to it in a year or two. Things don't go to schedule, generally. 

i think i might repair for now, but i love lights so i was thinking of moulding in some sort of housing to fit projector lights in, somewhere just under the indicators. I work at Halfords (a bicycle/car parts/paint/satnav/car stereo store) and we sell plastic pods for mounting aftermarket gauges which looked the same diameter as some projector fog lamps we have.

I do a lot of night driving in and out of town so the lights would be a bonus, see more at night, be seen more at night (and day, gotta love blind car drivers)