| Author | Message | ||
     Torquehd |
Far from perfect, it had a lot of pinhole air bubbles. I tried to sand them out but ended up sanding into the weave, creating flat spots in the carbon. no vacuum bagging, just the simple method.  it'll be a couple days before i get the tabs made and get it installed on the bike. i also attempted to reproduce the air scoop out of carbon - it's pretty complex (for a beginner anyway) so we'll see if it turns out. have to wait over 24 hours to pop it out of the mold. | ||
| Jhuppdog |
Looks good. Post some pics as you finish. | ||
| Figorvonbuellingham |
Looks pretty good. What are the steps in that process? | ||
| Imblasted |
nice! | ||
| Torquehd |
it's just like laying fiberglass - the negative mold is actually made of fiberglass. I use turtle wax as a parting compound, cut the fiberglass or carbon to the right size, wet-out the mold with the appropriate resin (and/or wet the fiber) and start laying the fiber up into the mold. after a few layers of carbon/fiber have been layed, work the air bubbles out with my fingers and let it cure. Oreilly's didn't have pearl white in a can, so i used gloss white and light silver. didn't come out as well as i wanted, but it's a project on a shoestring. (Message edited by torquehd on March 02, 2013) | ||
| Torquehd |
shortly after removing from the mold:  i like the satin finish but hated the surface imperfections. and shiny looks clean. | ||
| Tbolt98 |
That looks sick... love the red/white/blue on it! | ||
| Imblasted |
+1 red white and blue. but i would have to have a little more red color and area | ||
| Stensg |
Looks great how many layers of carbon did you do? I was just planning on making a custom fiberglass air box cover but this has got me thinking. Does carbon use the same resin as fiberglass? | ||
| Torquehd |
@ stensg, i only used 2 layers, plus some scraps left over from cutting the patterns - which is a little thin, i'll try 3 layers next time. and no, fiberglass resin doesn't work for carbon - you need epoxy resin. it's stronger and dries clear... not sure what the technical differences are, just know you "can't" use fiberglass resin on CF. popped the airscoop out of the mold, i still need to trim the edges (and fix the surface imperfections and paint, sand, paint, sand, sand, and paint some more). and make mounting tabs.    this was a PITA to remove from the mold! NOTE: it was NOT in the oven, that was just the brightest place in the house to get a decent pic. i also tried a new technique this time. After waxing the negative mold, i sprayed a few coats of clear acrylic enamel (rattle-can clear coat) directly onto the wax, before applying the epoxy and carbon. This resulted in fewer surface defects than i've typically had laying up composites in the past. (Message edited by torquehd on March 03, 2013) | ||
| Two_seasons |
I say you are talented. Good job! I'd rather do it myself too than give my good hard earned $$$ for Chinese pin-holed marginal CF. | ||
| Musclecargod |
That carbon looks great. Which epoxy did you use? | ||
| Torquehd |
@musclecar, i used the 2:1 from composite envisions (this junk takes 48 hours to cure!). I'm really just getting my feet wet and used the cheapest stuff i could find. i'm not happy with the quality of my end products and need to learn more about the products, and methods, to produce better results. when i get the money, i'll buy a vacuum bag setup and move up to pre-preg. | ||
| Musclecargod |
To do prepreg you will need an oven and vacuum (at the same time-so a pass through into the oven also). Old refrigerant vacuum pumps work well and can be found pretty cheap. It will need heat to cure up properly. Epoxy can be tricky because of the higher viscosity. If you want it to cure faster just heat it up (after its molded). Every 10 degrees will usually cut cure time in half on most epoxy systems. Just don't get carried away with the heat. Also you may want to topcoat the parts for UV protection. If you go the polyester/vinylester resin route, do not buy more MEKP hardener than you need (ie. do not buy 1 gallon of MEKP). Keep up the good work. It only gets easier. If you want any tips just ask, I have laid up hundreds of composite parts. | ||
| Musclecargod |
Also FYI, if you do use a MEKP catalyzed resin system, keep in mind MEKP is a skin irritant and will cause blindness immediately. Wear gloves and goggles, or heck work with your eyes closed  | ||
| Torquehd |
musclecar, who do you buy your composites materials from? i am really interested in developing my understanding and abilities with composites. i accidentally discovered the too-much-heat thing - i leave my parts next to the heater to cure, and one corner of my mold got bumped against the heater. it boiled bubbles into the resin and left huge bad spots in the finish. i had to use a sandblaster to get all the bubbles knocked out, and re-resin the area. i've searched youtube and found a handful of good vids on vacuum bagging, resin infusion, etc. do you know of any other good resources to learn from? | ||
| Musclecargod |
Torque, There are a few suppliers that will sell to DYI'ers. It can be tough to get things in small quantities. And as you no doubt found out carbon fiber is ferociously expensive. If weight and strength aren't critical you could try black fiberglass from FibreGlast, much cheaper but looks like carbon. Also check out their carbon fiber weaves they have some very cool patterns made from carbon fiber. Soller Composites would be another place to look, I haven't bought from them but they seem to get good feedback. | ||
| Musclecargod |
http://www.westsystem.com/ss/assets/HowTo-Publicat ions/Vacuum-Bagging-Techniques.pdf is good guide to vacuum bagging by West System (they sell epoxy resin). When you start doing vacuum bagging use the high tack yellow sticky tape, you will be glad you did. Also, even having one fiber across the tape will cause a leak so keep the tape clean. The purpose of vacuum bagging is really to get as much of the excess resin out of the layup to make a higher performance product. I would recommend trying out polyester/fiberglass for a vacuum bagging trial. The way the viscosity changes in a polyester system vs. an epoxy system makes it well suited for learning vacuum bagging. As you found out, epoxy starts thick and slowly gets thicker and thicker until you would call it hard. Polyester (and vinyl ester) both behave differently. Due to the free radical nature of their reaction, they start out a little thinner and stay thin for a certain amount of time and then suddenly start to harden (gel) very quickly. You control the gel time by the amount of catalyst and other things added to mixture. These resins generate heat when they cure, so it is a bad idea to mix up too much resin. If you mix up a bucket of resin and let it cure in bulk it could exotherm and melt through the bucket (ask me how I know that)  On the side of finishing things, you could try to spray the parts with clear gel coat. It will give the parts the glassy look that makes the carbon really pop. If you do a little research you can find what types of guns and nozzles work for gel coat. You could probably pick up a suitable paint gun at a pawn shop for cheap. | ||
| Torquehd |
thanks. when i decided to play with CF, i started playing with fiberglass to figure out the basics. weight and strength are important, and i want to make sure i'm using good quality components. not top of the line, just standard quality carbon and epoxy. if you can recommend a suppler and/or products, i'd be grateful. thanks for the advice. | ||
| Torquehd |
sorry for the delay, gents. got busy with life, but finally finished the project.    far from perfect still yet. it still has pinholes... gotta upgrade to vacuum bagging and resin infusion.  i weighed the OE part and the CF on a gram scale; the CF weighs a little less than half the OE. so i'm guesstimating that switching all the plastics to CF would save 12-15 lbs. (Message edited by torquehd on March 16, 2013) (Message edited by torquehd on March 16, 2013) | ||
| Dannybuell |
nice work. I like the red, white and blue in there. | ||
| Battyone |
You need a decent gelcoat! Easy composites over here do an epoxy compatible polyster gel,works real good. But you don't need to use epoxy resin,if you have to do wet lay up with no vac bagging use polyester resin or vinyl ester. |
