The Recumbent Bicycle and Human Powered Vehicle Information Center

NoCom Tailbox Project
What could we possibly do to make the NoCom speed Missile faster? After much discussion, the Chicago four area NoCom riders (Alan, Sean, Larry and Warren) decided that it would be faster with a Razz Fazz style fairing. Because none of us wanted to take on the project individually, this will be a group WISIL project. Rick W. volunteered to perform the CAD work to allow templates to be easily printed. The first step of this was to take measurements of the NoCom, and decide general fairing shape.
	January 2008 Warren took pictures of the NoCom and made measurements.
Alan, who was very familiar with the Razz Fazz fairing, added the general fairing shape in red.
	Sean is researching NACA wing shapes and other aerodynamics issues.
Here are some pictures of the actual NoCom tailbox. Thomas Schott on his Razz Fazz at the IHPVA championships in 2002.
	Dennis Ahrens riding Thomas' Razz Fazz at the IHPVA championships in 2002.
Chris Evans on the VK3 with Razz Fazz TB
	Rick Wianecki's first scaled CAD draft of the NoCom RF style TB.
1/29/08 Alan suggests changing rear profile
	Warren shows Ricks TB on NC Side
Warren shows Ricks TB on NC Top
	Warren resizes the RF TB for the NC.
1/30/08 Alan refines the outline (in white).
	Rick refines his CAD drawings (new side view in yellow)
Rick generates final templates. This version of the templates is designed to be constructed of 1/2" insulation foam, then skinned with strips of 1/2" foam.
	2/02/08 Rick generated the templates in 2" slices. This will allow us to cut out sections of 2" foam based on full scale drawings, and stack them together. The stack of foam will be sanded smooth, covered in fiberglass, and then smoothed further to make a male plug.
2/10/08 Rick generated the CAD drawing DXF files with the individual layers templates on it, and Warren had the drawings printed onto four 36"x96" sheets of paper by Kinkos. The tailbox will require 3 sheets of 2" - 4x8 ft foam to construct the plug.
	Alan made a rendering of what the tailbox would look like when using red texalium as the outer layer. Alan is building his own tailbox for his NC3 because it's different that the NC1 and NC2 owned by Warren and Sean's.
3/01/08 Warren and Sean spent a Saturday building the initial foam core of the fairing. 3 - 4x8 foot sheets of 2" foam were acquired, and the drawing were taped down to them. Here, Sean uses a pounce wheel to transfer the pattern to the foam.
	Sean has a happy #11 smile after rough cutting all 34 sections of the fairing. That makes it 68 inches long, or 5 feet 8 inches.
Warren stacks the sections onto wooden dowels to check the alignment.
	Sean applies the dabs of 5 minute epoxy to glue the sections together. A pile of glued sections sits to the left weighted down with some paint cans.
Sean stands next to the stack of foam to show the scale of the fairing.
	Modern art. Now comes the sanding and shaping.
4/13/08 Sean Costin relates the following: "I took down the edges on the Tailcone today."	Photo by Sean Costin
Photo by Sean Costin	"To get it ready I used a jigsaw and cut a 3/4" slot in the bottom to accommodate a board I would use to mount the tailcone in my Workmate. I used a 2 part foam to bond it in place. This worked quite well."
"I used a 12" rasp to do 90% of the work and used a sanding spline to top it off."	Photo by Sean Costin
Photo by Sean Costin	"I think there are either some problems with the plotting or the Cad templates because there are some bulges in areas where they really should not be."
"My brother related some problems he had with plotters. He measured up some things that were supposed to be 100% and found that they did not match the dimensions."	Photo by Sean Costin
Photo by Sean Costin	"The photos illustrate an area about 6" from the end of the tail toward the top where it should be narrower and a sharper dip below and forward. These problem areas are symmetrical to each side, so I am confident that it came from the plot."
5/24/08 Sean and Warren found time to work on the tailcone. To figure out how to shape the leading edge of the tailcone, we sat on the NoCom and drew outlines around our bodies. We then cut out a template which we attached to the leading edge of the tailcone to visualize how to shape it.
	Because our shoulders are actually 4" or so forward of the NoCom seat back, we needed to scoop out the center of the back area to ensure a good fit between our shoulders and the tailcone.
Sean sits on the tailcone to show the shoulder to leading edge area.
	Side view, Sean demonstrates the world record position. We have begun to cut off the areas that are obviously not needed.
Front view. Looks good!
	After more filing, Sean does a second test fit.
Looks better.
	Warren - top view.
Side view showing head a neck area. We'll need to cut more out for head and helmet clearance.
	Grr, where's he at? Lemmee at him... Oh. Warren demonstrates the riding position on his NoCom.
The shape is looking better.
	Sean's elbows are up higher than Warren's. We definitely need more helmet clearance
Shaping is done for the day.
	Here you can see where we added expandable foam to the fairing sides to fill in the low areas.
Front view with Sean's NoCom.
	Fairing bottom from front.
6/28/2009 Sean worked to refine the shape in 2008. The plug made it's way to Warren's barn in the spring of 2009, and Warren worked to get it ready to cover with a layer of fiberglass. Finally it is ready. I covered one side of the tailbox in fiberglass today. Next weekend I'll do the other side. After that is done I think I will cover it in plastic wrap and make a mule TF so we can see if it really fits the NoCom before I do the bondo work to make it pretty.
	7/30/09 It's all covered in fiberglass. Now I find all the imperfections and fill them with aeropoxy, a lightweight epoxy based body filler. And sand, and sand, and sand..... After a bunch of filling and sanding, the plug was handed off to Alan for finishing.
09/08/2009 Today is day 1 of putty play time with a gigantic tailfairing for my Tinkerville Special. Yee haa!!! Warren and Sean did all the work so far and now I get to cobble and tinker it for a smooth surface to go super fast in 2010.
	09/08/2009 Here are the latest photos of the Ultra Blimp. So far about 40 hours of adding thin multiple layers of Aero Epoxy followed by spline sanding high spots. Both sides required a lot of fill for a smooth bow shape to the tail end. The texture looks awful under fluorescent light but in daylight the plug is starting to take good form.
Probably another 40-80 hours or so to smooth sand some of the left side and the bottom quarter. The bottom has to be rough sanded, filled and smooth sanded before priming the plug. I plan to cut off the bottom board and drill holes for rods attached to a base for primer spraying.
	After thinking about some forum posts for a couple days I decided to change the entire front shape of the TF to a rounded bubble shape. Each rider can cut the opening to follow the contour of their torso similar to a Birk Comet.
09/24/2009 LZ visited today to check the fit from front, back, sides and top. There were too many hard and open edges between the rider and the fairings front edge. The top protion also pushed the head and neck too far forward and had to be altered. The photo comparison shows how I want to smooth the transitions from faring edge into the torso, shoulders and head.
	I'm basically adding several inches of foam to the top of the plug. When molds are made and a TF is produced the opening can be cut to fit each individual riders shape.
I already set up a border and poured expandable foam on the front surface. When it hardens tomorrow I will remove a lot of the material and shape it down to size needed for a rounded front edge. I am not making the faring wider.
	9/25/09 This is after 4 hours of carving. Next I will drape a layer of fiberglass on top of the foam, let it cure then smooth shape it with Aero Epoxy and sanding splines. This TF can now be produced from a 2 piece mold instead of 3 pieces with a concave front face.
Big difference from the 9/08 photo in this thread. This new front shape will allow a smooth transition from rider to fairing.
	9/27/09 The front of the fairing will be similar to the opening of a RazzFazz. The opening will have a rounded edge the rider fits into.
9/30/2009 Alan did a light check following the shadow line of the TF. The right side is looking good for this stage of of pre priming. Just a few small air pockets to fill and smooth out.
	The upper left corner had a big dip and required a bunch more gooey filler to be slapped on. He thought he was all done with shaping and now he gets to do it again..
10/07/2009 Alan says: "After cutting off the base board that was bonded inside the foam core I was able to refine the bottom surface of the plug. Both left and right sides now have similar shape and curves from front to the tail with a narrow flat bottom edge for the rear wheel. Thick multiple layers of Aeropoxy Light were added and shaped with flat hand rasp tools to get the smooth curves and flow needed."
	"Next, a very thin top coat of Aeropoxy was added using a popsicle stick to fill in the small grooves from the rasp files." "When the surface cured I pre drilled a strip of plywood with .5" holes for dowel rods. I placed the drilled board on the bottom of the plug to drill and tap holes in the plug needed to set it on a base for light surface sanding with splines."
"The next step after the surface is clean will be making a test fit fairing to decide if any additional changes are required for rider and bike fit prior to priming and waxing the plug."
	11/05/09 Alan took the plug to a body shop for the final sanding and primering.
He says: "I picked up the plug from the body shop this morning and the guy did a real nice job smoothing out the surface."
	"Next steps in the process are waxing, making a comp fairing then the 2 piece mold if the comp looks good. "
9/18/2010 The finished plug now makes it's way back to Warren's house so Sean and I can build the female mold. Garrie Hill documented the process to make the female mold.
The first step was to build a form that the plug will mount into, to allow flanges to be molded into the female mold. I transfered the plug's side view to a sheet of 3/4" MDF. I used the L shaped piece of MDF in the picture, with a marker pen taped to it. The fairing is supported with some chunks of modeling clay.
	After cutting the hole out, the fairing did not quite fit, so I had to trim a bit more here and there before it would fit properly in the hole. I also added some legs and supports to the mold flange form.
Here's the form with the hole cut into it.