Making things with Carbon Fibre

[NORBY]

After a bit of reading and maybe too long spent looking at nice cars i though "hey, i want to make something out of carbon fibre"

so basically im wondering if anyone has done it before, i really just want to make something reasonably basic like a pod filter 'shield' or similar, something thats really basic

any tips or tricks or suppliers?

Trav

[feral4mr2]

i've found this to be a helpful forum

http://www.racingcomposites.net/

[ed]

http://www.toymods.net/forums/showthread.php?t=30577

[RA23]

Check out this thread:
http://www.toymods.net/forums/showthread.php?p=156721

Woven (carbon) cloth is not the easiest stuff to work with. Try some fibre glass cloth first to get some experience, that is easier on the wallet.

[oldcorollas]

you can get drapable cloth also, whihc is easier for curves but..... eek...

[jeffro ra28]

got any mates that work for aerospace companies?
Get him to nick some from the composites room

[Cuts]

oohh pick me pick me. i made my airbox from carbon fibre woven cloth. Which sounds like what you want to do.
i made a template from cardboard (the stuff with 2 outer layers and the corregated stuff on the inside. I left the cardboard in there, i figured that its a good insulator and doesnt weight much, takes away fully sick induction note though

I got the cloth from tamar marine which is a reasonably large marine/boating/diving suppliers/shop. It was $100 for a square meter from memory, that was a couple of years ago now.

[NORBY]

Cuts, thats exactly what i want to do!

can you give me a quick run down of how you did it (if you remember)

i was told by a few people to make a fibreglass inner shell and then just to coat it in carbon but if i can make it reasonably easy i might do that

[Cuts]

its not too hard, if you have done fibreglassing before you will piss it in.

Its just the same procedure really, the biggest drawback is that its hard to see where you have put your resin, and its hard to see if you have enough on, as opposed to glass what goes clear etc. I used the same resin as i use for fibreglass too.
as far as the shell went, i just got some cardboard and cut out each panel, then got some thick masking tape to stick it togther, i made a couple of these to get it right. Note in the pic how its curved, it was once flat, im assuming the resin and cf expanded causing the curve, i now have some bracing made from more cardboard and cf underneath, if i did this from the start im confident it would stop it altogther.
NOTE the inside is just cardboard there is onlt 1 layer of cf.

[NORBY]

sweet mate, thats exactly what i was planning on doing, but i was thinking of taking the cardboard off, would that be possible?

[Cuts]

possibly, i never wanted to because of the reasons i said before....and im lazy