NINJA 600Rx Fairing Material? Fiberglass or ABS

I want to do some repairs on my bike fairings but can tell what the
material is.
Reading this article they mention ABS and fiber glass..
http://www.sportrider.com/tech/146_9510_hand/
There are cheapo repairs already which are done with fiberglass but
the actual fairing material looks like abs plastic...

Does anyone know?
The bike is a '87 NINJA 600Rx

Thanks-
M.Chav

 

It's probably ABS plastic which is a moldable thermoplastic. ABS
plastic can be heat welded by somebody who knows what he's doing, buck
it can also come out looking like crap.

Fiberglass is also a moldable thermosplastic which lends itself better
to low volume production and home repairs.

You can lightly sandpaper the inside of the fairing, apply some
polyester resin, push a few layers of fiberglass cloth down into the
resin, work the bubbles out and let it cure.

Nobody will ever see the repair, it's on the inside, no need to sand
or paint it.

Then you can fill the gaps between the broken parts from the outside
with a two part epoxy like JB Weld and finish with a thin layer of
Bondo.

Bondo is a thermoplastic with so much fiber glass in it, it looks like
reddish putty. Bondo has barely enough strength to support itself.

Some early Suzuki GSXR's actually had mixed fiberglass and ABS parts.
One half of my fairing lowers is ABS and the other is fiberglass.

Well, maybe the *quality* of the repairs looks "cheapo", but if I
wanted a really strong repair, I would use fiberglass cloth and
polyester resin.

You can probably still buy a "Hotcha" ABS repair kit.
It's a 2-part epoxy that is used to glue pieces of ABS behind the
cracks in the parts. The ability of Hotcha to stick depends on surface
preparation. The ABS fairing and the ABS repair patch have to be
sanded.

Fiberglass is so much more flexible and easy to work with. That's what
I used when a Buick sideswiped me and punched a hole in my ABS
fairing.

If you want to buy a whole new replacement part, google up "Maier".
They made ABS replacement parts, but they weren't painted.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

What?! No it's not! It's glass fiber cloth, matting, or chopped fibers
held together by a resin, usually epoxy.

It's not plastic and it's not moldable, it's laid up, usually by hand,
on a male or female form and impregnated with the resin. If the
fiberglass already has resin in it before being laid up, it's called
"pre-preg".

Put down the crack pipe, open the window, and let the fumes dissipate.

There's non-ABS plastics that are even more flexible, used by Sharkskinz
and other race bodywork makers. That stuff is really thin and withstands
an incredible beating.

-gc

 

You know, that occured to me, and I just thought I'd let someone else
pick up on it as it's not something I know a vast amount about. Except
that I was pretty sure it's not thermoplastic.

 

Actually, I should have said that fiberglass is a moldable
*thermosetting" plastic. Thermosetting plastics include
alkyd, allylic, amino, casein, epoxy, phenolics, polyester,
polyimide, polyurethane, and silicone.

Thermoplastics include ABS, acetal, acrylic, cellulose
acetate, ethyl cellulose, vinyl acetate, fluorocarbons like
teflon, ionomer, nylon, parylene, phenoxy, polyallomer,
polycarbonate, polyethylene, polyphenylene oxide,
polypropylene, polystyrene, polysulfone, and vinyl.

But, why quibble? Your problem is with what most folks
would call the end result of the combining of the plastic
and the glass fiber.

If you bought a fiberglass part for your motorcycle, would
you expect to get a roll of fiberglass cloth and a bottle of
resin with a smaller bottle of catalyst?

No-o-o-o, you would expect to get a finished, painted
part and if your friends asked you what it was made of,
you'd say, "Fiberglass, of course."

What is commonly called "fiberglass" is not the cloth,
matting, rove, chopped fiber or whatever you want to call
it.

Fiberglass reinforced plastic is a matrix of thermosetting
polymer, reinforced by spun glass fibers. The public
probably first saw it between 1945 and 1950.

If you don't care too much about strength or weight, you
can spray the polyester and chopped fibers out of a
sprayer, into a mold that has previously been gel-coated
for smoothness.

Sometimes the color is right in the resin.

But, if you want lightness and strength, you minimize the
resin and hand lay the cloth

There is no point in having any more resin between the
fibers than that which is necessary to "glue" them
together for mutual strength. The only reason that extra
resin is applied to the outer surfaces is that people like
smooth fenders on their Corvette, or whatever.

Otherwise, polyester thermosetting plastic by itself is
too brittle, it has unpredictable tensile strength anywhere
from 1000 psi to 17000 psi and it weakens drastically in
the hot sun unless it's painted white. It's good for 150 to 300
degrees.

If you need more strength or resistance to fuel and oil, you
don't use polyester resin, you use epoxy. The tensile
strength is about 12000 psi and it's good up to 500
degrees F.

Builders who are working with carbon fiber would be the ones buying
"pre-preg". The OP just wants to patch his ABS
fairing and I told him that fiberglass was a good way to
do it.

Is that such a crime that you have to get insulting?

Now aren't you sorry you said that?

 

And you'd still be wrong. The resin is not a thermosetting plastic
either. According to "GLENCOE Aircraft Maintenance & Repair, 6th ed",
it's usually thermoplastic, and it takes pains to differentiate this
from thermosetting plastic.

In addition, also according to GLENCOE, fiberglass is not molded, it's
layed up. That's what makes fiberglass "fiberglass" instead of another
type of glass fiber composite.

Because if you insist on splitting hairs and quibbling over other
people's posts, then you have to choose your own words with precision as
well. You're the one that insists on quibbling.

There are several ways of "combining plastic and glass fiber" just as
there are several ways of manufacturing something out of metal, and they
have properties that differ in important ways.

"Fiber reinforced plastic" is something entirely different from
normal fiberglass construction, and it's not "fiberglass reinforced
plastic" either, regardless of your sloppy mixing of half-remembered
concepts.

My old aftermarket fairing is made from fiberglass. This is not molded.
You can look on the inside and see the plies of fabric.

My R-C model helicopter is made from fiber reinforced plastic. That was
molded.

The two objects have very different properties due to the different
construction.

No. If it's carbon fiber, then it's definitely not fiberglass at all.
That's no different than confusing aluminium and steel.

You're still smoking the dope.

-gc