warmar rear end

[christok]

Sometimes when you produce fibreglass parts, small air pockets can be trapped between the gelcoat and the fibreglass. It is very hard to get all of these bubbles out while rolling your fibreglass. In an environment that is not too hot and depending on the thickness of the gelcoat it may never show up as a problem however in certain very hot times the little air pocket expands and makes a little bubble in the paint. A lot of painters are not aware of this and so do nothing special in the preparation before painting. Baking your part will help cure the fibreglass but may not do anything to cure the bubbles. I do not think that the problems being discussed here with the particular fender in question are a problem of the fibreglass bien cured properly. I think it is the air bubble situation.

Without getting into a lot of details on the making of fibreglass parts here is what I would suggest you do before giving your fibreglass parts to a painter to be painted.

first of all fit your part to your bike and run it on your bike for a week or two before painting. this will help show ny problems you could have with fitment and rubbing etc and if you run it in extreme hot temperatures it could bring some if any of the bubbles to the surface. It is better for problems to show up on an unpainted surface previous to the painting.

next when getting ready to paint your part, wipe it down very well with a good wax, grease remover. this will remove any wax that can be left on the gelcoat.

next step is to sand your gelcoat however I like to take a heat gun to the glass before sanding. I put a wet coat of the wax/grease remover on the part and then I take a heat gun and apply it to the part. You can see the wax remover dry as you move the gun along the part and you will see that the part will become very hot to the touch. Keep a pencil handy and it you see a bubble popping up to the surface of the gelcoat circle it for treatment later. with this heat any air bublles should come to the surface. Once the whole part has been heat treated I then grind out any of the air bubbles if any that had surfaced and then fill them with a good quality putty. I grind out a section a little bigger than the bubble and feather it into the surrounding gelcoat. Once all the bubbles have been taken care of i then sand the whole part and then proceed with the primer process.

this will help eliminate the possibility of haveing bubbles come to the surface of your paint somewhere in the future due to the actual fibreglass.

A warning however for the DIY painters. If you touch the paint at any time in the process with youtr fingers this will leave invisible imputities on the paint that later can come back to haunt you.

There is also the possibilityy that your paint will bubble due to some impurities or chemicals in the paint itself and has nothing to do with the actual fibreglass process.

Each problem with a paint job can be caused by many factors. Humidity, impurities, chemicals all can cause problems. when I make a fibreglass part I assume that the painter will not pretreat it with heat and so i do it with all of my parts.

Without seeing the part in question i think it would be unfair to suggest that Warmar did something wrong as it could also be a paint problem. From what I have seen of Warmar's parts, they are of good quality. I have a friend that is a custom painter. Before he paints any fibreglass parts he puts the parts under a heat lamp. I doubt a lot of painters do this. I hope the sinmple steps i have listed above may help prevent problems for Warrior owners in the future.

[Caledonian Warrior]

A perfect reply Christok

I totally agree. My cleaning of pre-painted parts, whether it be steel, aluminium, fibreglass or whatever is always as clean as I can get them while wearing the vets gloves , before sanding and first coating.
What I don't do is heat the stuff up to 60 or 80 degrees C. I may start trying that.
I would also like to say that Warmar does do a great job with the design and moulding. The tail unit is a pleasure to prep and paint, with very little extra work.
I'll keep you posted once I get the part sent up.

Gav.