Far more of a nuisance than initially anticipated – the fabrication of some lower profile “flat” side-covers has been the order of the week. I’ve also managed to drop the seat I’ve fabricated off at a local upholsterer to get covered and ready for use! Mitch (the upholsterer, located in Brookvale, NSW) has given me a date at the end of this week as an ETA for him finishing his work and having the seat ready for pickup.
While waiting for the seat to come back, I’ve been busying myself with fabricating the aforementioned side-covers so that by the time the seat is ready, I can have the bike itself “thinned” to suit the far less bulky aftermarket seat I’ve made.
Cutting Aluminium To Rough Shape
I’m making these side-covers using 0.5mm sheet aluminium which seems to provide great flexibility and rigidity when required.
Once I’d managed to get an appropriate set of dimensions for my side covers, I started shaping them. First step was to clamp down the sheet with a straight guide to hammer against. I used a off-cuts of wood lying around to achieve this.
Hammering Sheet Into Shape
With surprisingly little effort, I was able to achieve rather tidy looking edging!
Once the edges had all been beaten sufficiently I test fitted the left side-cover to ensure my work would pay off.
Side Cover Test Fit
While I must say that the side covers are far from done, I am quite happy with their aesthetic thus far. Still to come – trimming some joins around the contoured edging, potentially welding the edges for further rigidity, adding some insulation on the inside, tapping two mounting holes, painting both side covers satin black and finally mounting the damn things!
I’ll also be doing some minor changes to where the electrics are hidden so that they won’t interfere (or rattle against) the inside of these new “low profile” side covers.
Thanks for reading and please stay tuned for the second half of this stage in the Kawasaki KZ250 project!