GS550 Cafe/Woodie

[gerwintown]

Hey guys,


Ive been posting about my bike in the tech section for a bit and just finally got around to posting pictures. i posted the following in my thread but i thought i would throw this idea in here as well:

ok so this is a quick and dirty photoshop rendering of my plans for this bike.

the rear cowl is made from layered and then vacuum bagged veneers, essentially bent plywood that you see on a lot of furniture (eames). with the vacuum bag system, i am able to get even clamping pressure during molding and thus a very nice bent plywood part with compound curves galore. the final or top veneer should be east indian rosewood if i can find enough of it, or well polished maple. im not quite sold on the color yet, im using some left over 2 part urethane from some previous school projects (prototypes of consumer product concepts) and this happened to be one of them.

the colors i have are this sort of navy blue, a bright lime (almost kawasaki) green, a roe (orange-ish pink) and i believe i have a pale blue and the same metallic green paint you see on new vw bugs. i will decide soon....


the overall shape of the piece might change of course due to the demands of the veneers, but this is the idea.


im going to play with this alot more as i build these parts over the next week or so, maybe bringing the piece up over the gas tank or adding some kind of mini-fairing around the headlight.

i jsut started using the vacuum bagging process for molding layered veneers, and its really an awesome process, so let me know what you think!

[gerwintown]

or how bout this one

a little closer to what i was thinking



oh and yes i am aware that the carbs are missing in these pics:-|

[mark]

Very interesting,, thanks for the post. Good luck with the project.

[beergood]

That is one hell of a wild idea.

I have been interested in vacuum laminating since I first heard about it a few years ago, and I am a big fan of the Eames chairs (and other pieces, including that sweet WWII leg splint. I own two original eames zenith shell chairs).

Post some pics of the progress, if you can.

[hp1000s]

There'r some old-school guys in the Carolinas that make some of the sexiest shaped sportfish boats in the world, totally by "cold-molding" methods. Look up Buddy Davis. It's amazing the compound shapes you can make from veneers.

[gerwintown]

thanks

thanks for the tip on buddy davis. pretty cool stuff.

this is a piece i just recently made, its about 6'' in length, meant to be a "holster" for a fly box. in the pic its not finished yet, but you get the idea.

[gerwintown]

another

another view, now with finish

[gerwintown]

have any of you guys ever seen anybody use an old skateboard with cool graphics on the bottom as the seat pan. if i can get a good bend and make it flush with the rear lip of the skateboard i think it might be a nice touch.

anyways, got a couple of skateboards that ive found lying around town that im thinking bout putting to some use....well see. might try to make a rendering of what im thinking later tonight. im gonna try to start building this thing this weekend.

its hard to commit to making modifications right now because i just want to ride....weird as it is to say i hope it rains this weekend.