sheet metal cowling

[Anonymous]

how hard do you guys think it would be to remake cowlings out of sheet metal with an oxy acetylene torch

[Anonymous]

Sheet metal bends easily in one direction but compound angles are tough. Our school just had a body for a small open-wheeled car built out of aluminum. The guy who did it used very soft sheet aluminum and hand pounded it. It's been weeks since he started and the cost is about 9000$CDN without paint.

It is agonizingly tough, you could make a career out of making the cowling.

Steve

[Anonymous]

it's been yers since i did any welding, but it seems to me that any sheet metal that would stand op to brazing without warping or melting would be fairly heavy.

[Dink]

Ice to make a cowl out of sheetmetal would be impractical as the weight of steel required to stand up to the forces involved would be way heavier than fibergass etc. as used now.
Dex if you are careful you can braze two sheets of aluminium foil together. Why you would want to has never been adequately explained 8O
Dink

[Anonymous]

my fiberglass cowling is beyond repair and there isnt a community for this bike like there is for the suzis so i would have to buy it from the dealer and the prices are astronimical. the think is the front cowling inst that difficult. i could most of it a plane and there would only be a 90 degree angle for the windshield

[Anonymous]

If your school has a sheet metal brake and one of those things with the rollers you'll be able to do the bends. You need to fold over all of the edges as they are sharp enough to do you in during an accident.

Good luck, Steve

[Anonymous]

The cowls and other parts for your bike show up on EBAY with quite a bit of regularity. I'd keep an eye out there.

[Robert Corrie]

Cowling

Even if you have access to an English Wheel to make the compound curves needed , you will go crazy trying to get one side to be the exact opposite of the other. But if you really want to try, .032 or .040 inch thick aircraft alum would be the way go. Thats what I did to make a chin cowling for my 1150E. But then I have access to the fun machines at work to play with.

[Anonymous]

I have been thinking for a long time about making my own fiberglass flairing. I would thikn you could as well if your already thinknig about doing it with sheet metal. I found a cool tape online that explains how to fiberblass with out molds. They built a cutsom rear body for a old tbucket for about $300 including trunklid and all. Anyway i have thought up several ideas to get shape. One would be to use like wire frame and wrape fiberglass around it, till it was stiff enough and cut the frame out, you could easily fiberglass brackets in as well.

At an old job i had to repair fiberglass corners where jukebox doors closed. it all seams rather doable for the flairing i just have not done it yet. The cool thing if you are creative you can do anyshap style you like. The semit tuff part but not would be incorporating a windshield. BUt i thikn would be easy if you designed it around and existing windshield.

I am planning on redoing my engine now in my bike, and if all goes well ill be thinking more on doing the flairing for my bike.

ben

[Anonymous]

Re: sheet metal cowling

[quote="ice109"]how hard do you guys think it would be to remake cowlings out of sheet metal with an oxy acetylene torch[/quote



it took me quite a while to make the hood for my kid`s snowmobile out of aluminum but the results were worth it
mark

[silverhorse47]

I brazed panels into an old van once and the main problem was warpage. I agree about the compound angles being very difficult to accomplish. Also...it is amazing what you can do with pop rivets and epoxy.