In fact... Welded on the brackets this evening

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I like the brown and hump. Looks very classic. I also like the red hex and hump . Very classy!
Just a note . Are you sure that that gauge tube will hold a passenger. It looks like it will bend at the weld junction with the lower struts once weight of a passenger is put out at that much leverage.
You could redo you seat base to be structural, which would help ( carbon fibre?). It would end up deeper but hopefully be stronger and stiffer with double load weight, without making it too chunky looking with careful design.

The steel tube that was used to form the seat hoop is 1" 12 gauge, so pretty thick walled stuff - with the cross struts as well its not moving anywhere, it would take a lot of load to bend the frame, and I think the suspension would have to give way first  that and the fact that her ladyship is dinky I hopefully wont have a problem  The proof will be in the use!

It looked narrower diameter in the photos. 25mm/2mm should be reasonably stiff. The weld will soften it a bit but could be fine at that size.

I've been away for a couple of weeks, but today I got the seat foam cut and stuck down, we'll see how this fairs!

It's give an idea of what it's going to look like, starting to come together!



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Today I got the frame back from the powder coater so got it on there this evening.


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Looking very good!

Before I send the seat pad off to be upholstered I wanted to get a start on the seat hump just incase any tweaks and adjustments are needed. So here it is:

The first thing to do was to create a former of the seat foam so it is a good fit from fibreglass, this was done by wrapping the seat in masking tape then in ducktape for good coverage, you don't want the resin to touch the foam as it can melt it.


Then the tape is covered in bees wax and sprayed with hairspray ( cheaper the better!) To act as a releasing agent.



Then it is a simple case of laying up some fibreglass and resin - at this point it's not really a concern about the final finish, this is only the very beginning of make a mould buck. I did two layer of course matting.



Once dry it's time for a trim up with the Dremel.




One of the hardest thing about making and modeling anything is keeping it even on both sides, to help me with this I made up a very rough model in SketchUp that I then sliced up to make help make a formwork for the hump:







These are then printed off, stuck to card, cut out and stuck to the base to create a 3D formwork, basically go mental with a glue gun, card and match sticks, it's great as you start to get an idea of what it's going to look like!













To get this to become a more solid structure the first step is to pump it full of expanding foam




The next stage is to cover the foam in filler once dry and get to work - cue hours of sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding, painting, 2 part mould making and finally producing a seat hump!.. more to come!


First stage shaping complete,best to use a bendy knife to help form the curves.






Here's the first round of filling, as it's just mould buck there is no point in using expensive body filler, so for the basic shaping I'm using plaster filler, cheap and very easy to work!



Icing the cake!



Few coats of filler and we have this:



Marking up the relief cuts:







It needs a load more work to blend it in better, but you get the idea.



A bit more blending and filling.

That is so wickedly cool!  You are a multi-talented artist! 

Glad you're going with a race hump - it looks great.  The flat seat alone looks great, but having a curved tail really complements the lines from the gas tank.

Sign me up if you ever go into business making GS seats!

Thanks Endopotential, this build is great fun! I'm happy I've done it now too, hopefully it should look good when it's finished!

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I'm always in the mood for a good fiberglass bit of a thread! Awesome job!!! Makes my mould that I made a while back for a seat cowl look very primitive, for sure.

Your posts will certainly be inspiration for others who search, I just know it!

Wow! I am really impressed. Great work.

It's been a while since I've posted, life and work have gotten in the way of me finishing the bike off!

I made a bit more progress this weekend with some more sanding and filling, I also shot ALOT of high build primer on it last night to get the smoothing process going properly!  It's getting there.

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High build primer is my friend.  Looking sweet

Absolutely loved reading through this build! I have just impulse bought a GS500 on ebay which I'll be picking up this weekend. My first bike which will need alot of TLC. Your build is massive inspiration!! Thank you!!

Thanks Mrgaru! If you've bought a GS you've come to right place!

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So I've been filling and priming this buck for quite some time now 

It's only when you get it into primer and get a consistent finish that you can see what your actually dealing with!

You can see from the first photo that the recesses dont quite match.. damn. Being a bit of perfectionist and knowing that it will wind me up I'm going to have to re do it.. cue the Dremel cutting disk and a ton more filler!

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This shows the difference

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And here is the aftermath from the Dremel, good job I bought a massive tub of filler!

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That thing you did in sketchup, breaking it into slices, was that a plugin? I always thought about doing exactly this in sketchup for my front fairing instead of using a body panel gauge...