I wanted to fit a Buco sport shield to my 39 Knuck as I like to ride with a windshield. Having tried to bid on several on e-bay during some time I found there was obviously more people than me in need of those, hence prices have been pretty stiff. Then, this really smashed and beaten old Buco sport shield came up for sale. I could see that at least the frame had some potential. final bid was mine, 1 USD!
When the package arrived and opened I have to say I thought, puhh, this is going to be tough. I managed to make all the frame parts straight with some hammers and punches, and I even managed to clean up and carefully by adding heat get the red lower part pretty OK.
Now the hard part came up. Buco use very thin sheets in their windshields, and make them keep their form by adding a solid acrylic rod as edge trim, this edge trim is then secured by the windshield frame.
I was quite sure such a edge trim would be available to buy, I could not be more wrong.
Nowhere, I checked and e-mailed and even visited several guys working with plastics to earn their living, negative.
I ended up buying a solid rod, 5/16" (8mm), was very reasonable priced to my surprise. But how do I get a 5 mm deep and 1,5 mm wide slit in a piece of this rod?
Again I went to a professional, but sorry no they could only make 3mm wide slits as a minimum.
Back home I decided to make my own tool to make this slit, MKI by using a high speed wood edge trimmer, no luck as the high rpm`s got the saw to melt the acrylic.
MKII, now a drill with an adjustable rpm motor was used, far better at low rpm but when adding water to the saw during the cutting things really started to work well.
At last I had a 4 feet piece of rod with the correct slit.
Then came the job in carefully heating the rod with a hot air gun such that it could carefully be bent around the new made upper windshield piece I had made.
Whow did I get my neighbor sweaty as he was chosen to help me out in this matter.
Finally we where able to mount both windshield pieces in the frame, was not at all easy cause we had just four hands available, should have been at least six.
Lessons learned;
buy the expensive windshield on e-bay if you get a chance or you might get a handful of challenges that of course in its turn give a load of experience you might or might not need along the way.
Acryl rod slitting saw MKI, to high speed, didnt work as the acrylic got to hot and melted.
Principal of construction.
Acrylic rod slitting saw MKII, now low rpm by regulated drill motor.
Even with lower rpm the best solution was to water cool the saw when cutting in the acrylic rod.
Saw with a slitted piece of the acrylic rod laying in the back.
Making a template for the new Buco upper windshield part. The straightened Buco windshield frame resting in the back, waiting for the screen parts.
Old windshield parts and the finished template.
Ahh, finally done, unfortunately there was no pics from when cutting the acrylic rod nor when heating it to get it bent for the new shield. Both those operations demanded full concentration, picturing was no option.
Mounted on the 39 knuck.
Looking good?
Riders view.