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- Feb 28, 2009
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I am in the middle of my next project. I saw a post about someone making their own fiberglass tank and wanted to give it a try. I think I am going to call this bike "The Never Ever Again" bike.
All in all, it is going well. Just way more time and money then I would have thought. I will post some pics when I am done.
My big problem so far was just a very stupid mistake I made. Maybe the fumes were getting to me, forgot the respirator a few times. Well I had it almost smoothed out, just some scratches and a few pits. I decided to just give it a very thin coat of spot putty over the entire tank. I figured one final sanding and it should be done. I coated it in the evening thinking I would be good to go in the morning. The next day, I ran my hand over it and my hand turned red. I didn't think much about it, but was a little surprised. It was chilly that night so I chalked it up to that. I decided to set it out in the sun and do a little cleaning up of my work area. I picked up the tube of hardener and thought, that is odd, it was almost all gone. Then it hit me, I grabbed the wrong tube and had put hardener all over the tank instead of spot putty. It was never going to dry. What a mess. I tried wiping it down with lacquer thinner first, didn't do much. Sanding was out of the question too. I ended up scraping it all off with a razor blade and digging it out of any holes. I think I got it all. Now I have to do it again, only with the right stuff this time.
What dumb mistakes have any of you made?
The other thing with this tank is that I am really surprised how much this thing is starting to weigh. I think the tank alone weighs 2-3 times what the frame weighs. And it is only foam and fiberglass. I just hope when I am done that it is worth it.
All in all, it is going well. Just way more time and money then I would have thought. I will post some pics when I am done.
My big problem so far was just a very stupid mistake I made. Maybe the fumes were getting to me, forgot the respirator a few times. Well I had it almost smoothed out, just some scratches and a few pits. I decided to just give it a very thin coat of spot putty over the entire tank. I figured one final sanding and it should be done. I coated it in the evening thinking I would be good to go in the morning. The next day, I ran my hand over it and my hand turned red. I didn't think much about it, but was a little surprised. It was chilly that night so I chalked it up to that. I decided to set it out in the sun and do a little cleaning up of my work area. I picked up the tube of hardener and thought, that is odd, it was almost all gone. Then it hit me, I grabbed the wrong tube and had put hardener all over the tank instead of spot putty. It was never going to dry. What a mess. I tried wiping it down with lacquer thinner first, didn't do much. Sanding was out of the question too. I ended up scraping it all off with a razor blade and digging it out of any holes. I think I got it all. Now I have to do it again, only with the right stuff this time.
What dumb mistakes have any of you made?
The other thing with this tank is that I am really surprised how much this thing is starting to weigh. I think the tank alone weighs 2-3 times what the frame weighs. And it is only foam and fiberglass. I just hope when I am done that it is worth it.
