Pawel's build thread.

[Pawel]

drove almost 3hrs with traffic to NJ to meet up with Brian (BigHit) .. picked up some parts excited about what I got and the great deal I got on em, but on the way home I convinced myself that i now HAVE TO fiberglass the tank haha.


got some fenders ill end up chopping up, got a fork / stem / apes .. white wall tires .. a new headset its ready to get popping!!




its gonna look good thats for sure1!!!





and i got so excited I had to try out the fork / apes for size...what do you know perfect fit.

[sensor]

youve read all the posts on the repop monark forks right?
if not try searching monark forks and youll see why im asking........

[sensor]

they do this.......

theres 3 pages of people whove had the same thing happen with the repops....
food for thought

[Pawel]

looks fun lets hope it dosent happen to me, im gonna look over the fork and see if I could make it rigid some how and have the front for looks.

[Pawel]

hit a road block...the wheel hub dosent fit on the fork, unless i took it apart and put it together wrong (dont think I did) .. but I took it down to the LBS and was told the that the space between the dropouts is seppose to be 100mm and this fork has it about 75. I gotta mess around around the spacers, and see what I could do but at the same time when I take apart the and remove spacers theres way to much play in the drop outs .. and wheel still dosent fit -.- .. sigh taking a quick brake eating lunch or what have you .. i taped off the tank and got it ready for fiberglass but when I couldnt find the scissors I threw stuff across the basement and came upstairs for a brake. I also concluded that Im taking my time with the build...its sucking up alot of money weekly and its keeping me away from the gym, so Im only gonna work on it on the weekends and furlough days from work. Its gonna get done just take alot longer to get done..picture of tank, more to come tonight.

[Pawel]

You know when you tell yourself, I shouldnt do this. And you do it..and then you have a huge mess that takes you back a million steps from where you were well thats my issue now lol. I went about fiberglassing the tank, bad call its gonna be SO much sanding and body filler to get it anywhere close to where it looks like a tank / filler that I dont wanna even touch the bike any more haha.

[Pawel]

Back to plan R lol I started sanding and made a huge mess....three showers and I'm still itching gonna cut it out tomorrow....at this rate I'm never gonna finish.

[Rusty]

hit a road block...the wheel hub dosent fit on the fork...

I am building a bike with the same forks right now. There are probably lots of ways to switch the plates around but here is what I did:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=18099&start=19

As far as the tank goes - fortunately, you taped the frame before glassing. So you could easily saw a hole in the middle and just peel it off and start over. I've done a lot of work with fiberglass. What you need to do is lay it on in larger pieces and use an old credit card or something similar to squeegee out the excess resin. You don't want any puddles of resin, it should look like wet cloth when you get done. You will probably want a minimum of two or maybe three layers of 8oz or 10oz cloth. It will probably be easier to do them seperately and sand down any little spikey fibers you have sticking up before doing the next layer. When the last layer of glass has kicked, you can lay some lightweight bondo over it to fill in the weave and then sand it smooth. Again, use a squeegee to keep the bondo smooth so you have less sanding to do to finish it up.

If you are interested, here is a thread on a plane I built from scratch a few years ago, molds and all.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=107084

Rusty.

[Pawel]

i give up lol back to square one tomorrow Ill be stripping the whole frame and starting over...90th time is the charm yea?

[Rusty]

Actually, fiberglass is really fairly forgiving to work with (I mean, if I can do it – well, ‘nuff said... ). Seriously though, I break planes all the time and just glass them back together. A little bondo/sanding and you can’t even tell they were ever broken. You can also cover up mistakes very easily. One thing, it looks like you are using glass mat? If so, you might try using some woven fabric. It will lay down much smoother – that is, if you want to try again.

You can DOEEEEET!!!

Rusty.

[Pawel]

Actually, fiberglass is really fairly forgiving to work with (I mean, if I can do it – well, ‘nuff said... ). Seriously though, I break planes all the time and just glass them back together. A little bondo/sanding and you can’t even tell they were ever broken. You can also cover up mistakes very easily. One thing, it looks like you are using glass mat? If so, you might try using some woven fabric. It will lay down much smoother – that is, if you want to try again.

You can DOEEEEET!!!

Rusty.

i could dooooeeeeet cause i did it, ripped off all the fiberglass and started sanding the frame, waiting to get some chemical gloves from work so I could use chemical stripper.

[Pawel]

started cleaning off the frame. its officale im back to square one lol..will probably start primeing the frame tomorrow once I get the remaining primer off.

I did learn one thing today.. If you using chemical stripper make sure you clean it all off before you hit the paint with a wire brush .. your eyeball dosent like having chemical stripper on it.

[Pawel]

Been sick with a fever / cold yesterday and today I woke up really cold so I called out of work and now Im trying not so smash my face into my keyboard, just holding my self up hurts. So I havent done anything yet ... maybe some more work this weekend.

[Pawel]

sick or not im tempted to get stuff done tonihgt..pictures to come.

[Pawel]

sorry I dont know why the phone took such a small picture..but I messed around in the basement a little and got things rolling, I bought a new seat, I plan on going back to that bike shop ... they have a old penny bicycle type seat for 35$ i want to pick up..thing is cool, big and has HUGE springs ... i picked up a black viynal polo banana seat just like this one at the same store.



and I plan on fixing the plate I got it mocked up but its not centered like I want it so Im gonna talk to my dad about giving me a hand with that and possibily cutting me a new plate, seeing how I drilled random holes in it to get it where it is now..still some progress is better then none!!