Mixin' up some fiberglass bags

ThePsuedoMonkey

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Well I finally got tired of carrying my stuff in a bag like a homeless person, and am in the process of thinking up some custom real saddlebags. Ordered fancy piston locks and aluminum sheets & rods from amazon, resin from Lowes, strong fiberglass sheet from carbon-fiber.us (shipping charge seemed high, but still best price on ~15 square feet and enough layers to withstand 15000lbs), and random supplies from the walmart and local crafts shop. I'm thinking a dark red felt interior, mirror finish red exterior, polished aluminum supports, aluminum-reinforced locking mechanism, custom case for my laptop to fit inside either side, capacitor-powered LED lighting so I can see even when the power is off, all in an aerodynamic shell of pure awesome. Maybe I replace the signals, put in a crash guard, pinstripes maybe, could even be some fancy plexiglass-covered indicator lights! A very rough CAD drawing of some ideas: :)
Rough bags setup.jpg

I'm open to ideas, concerns, and advice. Especially tips on working with fiberglass! Amazon sure ships quickly, btw:
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Well, I started making a mock-up of version 1.0 this week out of poster board. I wish I could get some kind of modeling clay or polyurethane foam, but this will have to do for now. Trying to get a feel of how it will look:
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Looks like moving/replacement of the signals will be necessary.
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It doesn't look as big with the seat on.
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The neighbor's cat...
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...is always in the way :rolleyes:
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I have to agree on this one. Fiberglass is great, but that's a really ambitious project.

Oh BTW.... Your cat looks like it has a case of the Dingies. Bust out the hose.
 
Easier? Probably. Then again I'm not really known for listening to The Eagles. :laugh: Actually that was pretty much my original plan, but everything I found that I liked the style of was either too darn expensive or of really poor quality after looking at reviews. I had my heart set on getting something that was waterproof and I could lock, as the crime rate here is quite high, and they would have to fit my "laptop" in order to actually replace a backpack. In the end there wasn't anything that wouldn't require significant modification in order to fit my requirements.

To be honest this project is less intimidating to me than having to dig into my carbs, though I assume that is just natural for someone who has never done either. I don't expect it to be a walk in the park, but from everything I've researched it seems like the design/modeling phase is going to be the most difficult, since the most important part of the process is making a good base model for the glass to form around.

That cat could use a bath, but cats + water = pain
 
Really? A Silverwing set of luggage doesn't fit a laptop and is still lockable?

I mean, if you're really good with fiberglass, or you're looking for a shape that just doesn't exist, then all the more power to you. Heck, I'm trying to figure out how to mount pennies to my gas tank, so who am I to convince others against doing the improbable?
 
I have seen a few of those on ebay, but I didn't fall in love with them. I'm sure they could fit most laptops, but mine is rather large (because I wanted an awesome laptop when I got it): I'd need at least a 50x275x425cm area to fit it with a tiny amount of padding. Sorry guys, but I plan on chugging along for a while yet! This idea has actually been bouncing around in my head for a while, and now that I already have everything to give a decent punch at it... :boxing:

Taking what I learned from the first mock-up, I went back to Sketch-Up. I tweaked the shape a little and made it a little wider so that it can easily fit a typical milk gallon with the laptop in there. I toyed around with adding some trim for more aerodynamics.
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The mock-up of version 2:
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I pretended to mount it for the last one there, it requires me to swing my foot around pretty high (smacked right into it the first time)! I think I want to make the actual support frames and put the fiberglass right on top of them; that way I don't have to coerce the supports into the shape of the original mold. I started cutting my aluminum, but I can't assemble anything since my MIG is on the fritz for the moment. :mad: I used a hacksaw and band saw to cut it into the components, here are the ones for the laptop case and the reinforcement for the lock mechanisms.
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I had planned on shaping those with the sheet bender and vise, but that proved to be exasperating and slow. In the end I used mainly my hands with some assistance from the vise for the ends. It turned out pretty good, they are only off by ~1/8" in a few places. Now to find a new liner for that MIG...
 
I say go for it and good luck. I made a fiberglass cover for the gas tank on my motorized bicycle, vintage motorcycle homage and while it turned out looking good, I learned a lot about how not to handle fiberglass.

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Looks like a pretty good job, Houghmade! How did you tackle the edges? My first thought was to approach it like wrapping a present, but I wasn't sure about where to tuck the extra material and I didn't really want to cut the glass any more than I had to. Right now I'm thinking about folding it part way over the edge, then going back the other way. That way the edges are essentially triple reinforced, but I don't know if that will look "bumpy" or not. :confused:

I did make a little progress; cut out some pieces of aluminum and since the welder is not happy I used some clear tape to hold it together. The frame for the laptop case is behind the cat, and that tab is where I plan on installing the lock.
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Some heavy-duty bushed hinges to affix the top. Looks like it fits a few cats too! :laugh:
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Hard to get a decent look at it with just tape holding it together...
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I'd recommend using tape to mock it up at first though, since I ended up changing a few things once I started putting it together. Evidently, sometimes I measure twice, and sometimes not at all!
 
I used fleece rather than fiberglass cloth...which was a mistake. It stretched well so as to eliminate creases, but took coats and coats and coats of resin and then body filler to get smooth. I would wrap it like a present like you said. With a thin fiberglass cloth, plenty of resin will start to smooth over the folds, then some fiberglass filler (for strength) followed by regular filler will make the folds disappear.
 
Hough, that's one awesome bike:thumbsup:
Making some good progress there TPS, nothing like diving right into a project and gettin' it dun:bike:
 
I managed to get the welder to work, but I ran out of shielding gas partway though and didn't realize it (yeah, yeah I suck). I have to redo all of the welding now, since they are crap. :doh: Ground off most of the crap that I could get to, but I have my work cut out for me here. Aluminum is a LOT more difficult to weld than steel; if I knew that ahead of time I would've gone with 1/8" x 1/2" steel instead and just used more fiberglass.

Now for the good news: I did finish cutting pieces for the other cage (and they don't have crappy welds on them yet!)
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I also finally received the keyed-alike locks today.
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Four keys to two locks. :laugh: I thought I ordered bigger ones, but these feel solid and have a long enough plunger that I can make a nice hefty recess to reinforce it.
 
I managed to clean up all of my nasty errors, and restarted the welding process. You can see the difference a little practice (and the right supplies) will give:
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A few hours used up my argon supply, so this is where it stands until Monday or so.
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hmm maybe i can be of assistance to you since i make my living welding, it looks like youve got some parameters a bit off.

thats about 1/8" alum.

pure argon -flow rate 15-20 cfh
solid core ER4043 or ER5356 filler wire (aluminium)
wire feed speed 350-400 inchs per minute
110-130 amps

that hardware store metal lots of times has a coating on it so make sure you hit it with a very clean stainless steel brush, aluminium is real easy to contaminate.

give that a go and should look like a stack o' dimes for ya :thumbsup:
 
Thanks Fubar! It's always good to have input from the guys who know what they're doing! I'll have to try that; it is 1/8" aluminum and I had been using solid 0.030" electrode (the alloy with the higher tensile of those two, I don't remember the number) at 25A and ~200"/min with the argon at 25cfh and a working distance around 15mm. I had used a new aluminum-specific grinding wheel to clean the joints of my last welds. The MIG I'm using only feeds up to 300"/min, so that and either ~105A or 140A looks like the closest I can get to your numbers. It is so awesome to finally see some real progress! :D
 
Don't worry guys; I didn't get lost! I couldn't get any argon until tuesday, since the welding shop had an emergency call from the power station. :eek: Nothing on the news, so I guess we're gonna be OK! :) I went over all of the welds with the grinder, and most of them were still pretty bad. The 4xxx and 5xxx aluminum electrodes behave very differently. :wtf: I completely redid the ones where I could see the seam, and just went over the others with the MIG so that I didn't have to remeasure everything. The lid and cage for both sides are welded up and ready for a good once-over. Now I can take care of the whole point of doing an aluminum frame: the lock! I had to force myself to take a break, since I had a few more ideas since inception and I really want to think this through. Everything needs to be inside, since there is an emergency release on the locks (kinda defeats the purpose, oh well) and I need to counter-bore ~10mm or so of the lock to do that. Then, I'll put in some plate for the mounting hardware. Just think, if I had just decided to go with straight fiberglass I could've been done by now! :banghead:
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Well, I got the lock installed on one of 'em, but I'm not super happy with it...
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It looks OK, but the latch doesn't seem to mate well between the two pieces since it really needs about 1/4" of clearance to account for the motion of the lid. It is really sturdy and the lock works pretty well, but I know that I'm going to be kicking myself if I stay with this setup. I think I need to go back into looking for different locking mechanisms, since the other idea was to mount it to the lid and that would make it protrude ~20mm... :confused:
 
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