Friday, April 29, 2011

New Rear Fender for V3

The first fender ended up being a bit too small.  I was tring to maximize the amount of storage space and guessed a little wrong when measuring.  The second fender had the same problem but it was almost just right.  While it just worked for my weight around 75 kg when we tried it with our 100 kg tester we had some rubbing on bumps and hard cornering.  I now have the third version installed and will test it this weekend.

If this one works out we will be building a new mould and constructing the fender in two halves.  The procedure will be to hand laminate each side then clamp the moulds together and finish laminating the join area.  I have given up trying to make this part by vacuum bagging or infusion as the extra cost is hard to justify.  Most of the extra cost is in the time required to make the part.  The additional effort would be justified if you needed to save 100 g or so.

Tried it out this weekend and it still needs a small change.  The wheel can still touch the fender but you have to corner hard.  I will put some fill on the pattern to add a bit more room inside the fender.  After taking the back end off the velo I can remove the fender, cut some of it way and relaminate this part of the fender on the changed pattern and then try it out again.

No comments:

Post a Comment