Saturday, November 1, 2008

Working on a front fairing out of one sheet of coroplast

I spent the day working with Mike on a front fairing for his Catrike speed. The first try based on a design he had seen online didn't work as well as hoped. It was so high it was impossible to see the road in front of you for about 30 feet. We shifted gears and started with a 8' by 1.5' piece of coroplast left over from my fairing. Its bent around an piece of aluminum that we shaped into half an ellipse to make the leading edge of a vertical airfoil. It's based on Ethan Davis's fairing. What we're doing differently is making two bumps with a channel down the middle. The bumps provide knee and toe clearance and the channel provides forward visibility. We're making the prototype with scraps and recycled signs but it looks like this design could be made with a single 4x8 sheet of coroplast with limited cutting. We hope to finish it up tomorrow and get both pictures and plans up soon.

No comments: