Velomobile Gelcoat Repair
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- Опубликовано: 1 дек 2024
- When I'd only had the velomobile for a few weeks, I picked up a stone ship from a passing car. On most bikes, the first scratch you get is the point at which you can relax and stop being too precious about them, but this was a little more severe than that, so I decided to repair it.
I've done quite a lot of work with epoxy and carbon fibre in the past, so I figured, how hard can it be? The answer is, that it's quite easy, but I did make a couple of mistakes along the way.
I should also probably mention East Coast Fibreglass in South Shields who supply these gelcoat repair kits.
They have a RUclips channel at / @ecfibreglassuk , and their online shop is www.ecfibregla....
The page for the gelcoat kits is www.ecfibregla..., and looking through this I can see that they have all the standard colours for Mango, Quest, and Quattrovelo.
Might have to video the state of mine as I embark on a wide scale repair to the gelcoat
I am never going to do this, but still found it fascinating. Great repair sir 🧐
Fantastic!
Thank you I will try on my Quest!
Thank you. Just updated the video's description to give the URL for where I bought the kit from. I also checked on the range of colours they have - you should be able to get a match for the Quest, assuming yours is one of the standard colours and not Gold-Glitter-Flecked African Violet or similar!
Lovely work Karl. I know I've asked this before in The Other Place but what velomobile model is it?
And how are you getting on with your own build?
@@bnrynlds Thank you!
It's a Mango Tour, so not the fastest, but still faster than I am when fit and on a road bike! I went for this model as it seemed more practical - lots of luggage space, enough ground clearance to handle most speed bumps & dropped kerbs, and a reasonable turning circle. It has a shorter tail than e.g. a Quest, which makes it a little slower, and also quite a bit more sensitive to crosswinds at speed, but does also make it a lot easier to store. I *am* wondering about building a bolt-on race tail for it to improve the top speed and handling. As this would just be an aerodynamic component, it needn't be too tough - I'm thinking that a carbon layer either side of a 2mm foam core would do the trick. Of course, I'd have to make the pattern first...
For my homebuild, which is based on a HP Velotechnik's Street Machine, I'm rather paused at the moment. I had a few issues with the lay-up finish, which I've fixed, but it'll need a cosmetic skin (I've got some lovely twill weave carbon for this!). Before I do that though, I need to make the seat & figure out where its fixings will be so I can specifically reinforce that part of the frame - probably with a few layers of carbon-kevlar tape. I sort of know what to do, but I've been putting it off, because it's a lot more fun to just go out and ride the velomobile!