Hi! The Shelby Airflo is just plain beautiful. I love the lines and curves and i've always wanted one. So i jumped on the chance when a cheap frame and fork came up on ebay. One of the awesome members here remarked that i would have to fork out a LOT of cash to complete this project. That would be true if i were going to buy all the parts, and if i could bring myself to spend so much money on a hobby. I've done some sculpting in the past and i bought the frame with sculpting the missing parts in mind. Take note, this will just be an approximation as i'm doing everything by basically eyeballing and by hand.
First, i took a picture of the frame and fork and enlarged it to 1:1 size in Sketchup. Then i blew up a pic of an airflo using the same program and exported the 1:1 picture to Photoshop. I then traced out the tank, rack, and chainguard then superimposed them unto the pic of the bare frame for tweeking.
I then printed out 1:1 scale templates of the parts, test fitted them to the frame, then traced them on XPS foam.
Let the sculpting commence! I also used some expanding urethane foam for enhancements / adding foam.
Once the rough sculpts were done, they were smoothed out with layers of bondo and endless sanding. Then the details were locked in:
These were then used as bucks to make molds and rough copies were made in fiberglass. I had a friend of mine make the bars. I used the same method in sketch-up but because of some weird widescreen monitor setting, while it looked ok on the monitor, in reality it came out a bit thin and elongated. But still sexy.
Another friend help to make the mounting brackets for the fiberglass casts and fit them unto the bike. Here's what i have so far:
Not perfect, but not too shabby either, IMHO.
Next up, some finishing touches, some additional parts, and paint!
First, i took a picture of the frame and fork and enlarged it to 1:1 size in Sketchup. Then i blew up a pic of an airflo using the same program and exported the 1:1 picture to Photoshop. I then traced out the tank, rack, and chainguard then superimposed them unto the pic of the bare frame for tweeking.
I then printed out 1:1 scale templates of the parts, test fitted them to the frame, then traced them on XPS foam.
Let the sculpting commence! I also used some expanding urethane foam for enhancements / adding foam.
Once the rough sculpts were done, they were smoothed out with layers of bondo and endless sanding. Then the details were locked in:
These were then used as bucks to make molds and rough copies were made in fiberglass. I had a friend of mine make the bars. I used the same method in sketch-up but because of some weird widescreen monitor setting, while it looked ok on the monitor, in reality it came out a bit thin and elongated. But still sexy.
Another friend help to make the mounting brackets for the fiberglass casts and fit them unto the bike. Here's what i have so far:
Not perfect, but not too shabby either, IMHO.
Next up, some finishing touches, some additional parts, and paint!
