Snoek L

2021-12

Allert started with the Snoek L. The reason for this: He, and Theo too, also want to have a machine as efficient as Eva has ;-). And there was a lot of demand from our customers. We ordered a rigid fiberglass / epoxy product of the Snoek body. Allert drew dotted lines where the body was to be split. The bottom master drawing shows where the lines go and how much space is added. And then started by cutting, glueing, laminating and finally filling by filler.

2022-01

In this month Allert filled the gaps by filler and placed the turtle deck behind the head – this must be cut few times and squeezed. Also the nose floor went slightly higher and the tail became longer. It’s not just copy/paste/scale… there are always little things which can be improved or made different due to the size and ergonomics.

2022-02 – 2022-08

The process of perfecting the lines and shapes until there is a smooth and continuous line from all angles, takes a lot of time and costs a lot of filler. And on top of that it must be symmetrical. There is hardly any yellow of the original product left, the grey filler is all over the shape’s surface.

2022-09

We started making mould parts of the body. First you build a seam – a wall of smooth material, where the mould parts will be attached to each other. Then you will fill all the little gaps with clay. You install dowel pins. Wax and polish 4 times. And finally, you choose a day that you spend laminating. Gelcoat, fine glass fabric, carbon fabric, many layers of thick carbon fabric all bonded and well saturated with epoxy resin. And then repeat twice or more times, as we had troubles with the gelcoat adhesion to the epoxy lamination.

2022-10

As you can see in the pictures we had to redo the top and right side mould part. The green gelcoat had an adhesion problem with the resin we used. We did these two parts once again with the black gelcoat and a different resin.

2022-11

In the mean time Allert has destroyed the Snoek plug (the master model). You can see the build up in the wall thickness – made by many layers of filler.

2023-01 – 2023-03

In these three months we have laminated the body in the new Snoek L mould. Allert started to design (or redesign the Snoek) front and rear wheel-wells. There will be more space for the McPherson control arms. In the last pictures you can see a new part – rear shock absorber attachment – this is not there in the Snoek. The Snoek rear wheel-well is touching the body on 4 large areas, what fixates it very well in the body and makes it stiff. Snoek L has more space (also for luggage) around the rear wheel-well, therefore a part has to be made to connect the wheel-well to the body and increase stiffness.

2023-04

After designing and smoothing the wheel-wells, Eva started making moulds and laminating the first products. Allert was free to redesign the pistol part – support of the front boom – the square tube where the bottom bracket and pedals are attached. The pistol becomes slightly taller. The rear shock absorber support bracket is glued into place.

Week 15 and 16

Eva laminated the pistol and Allert installed and glued in the axle holder for the chain roller. It was then glued in place in the Snoek L. When all these parts – 3 wheel-wells, the pistol and the rear shock absorber support bracket – are inside the Snoek L, the top part of the body can be laminated to the bottom. ANd Snoek L goes into the oven.