anyone here do CF work themselves?

[blcknspo0ln]

hey,
did a quick search and didn't come up with anything.. so.. anyone here do their own CF work? just wondering because I'm pretty proficient with fiberglassing [ made my own 97 lip ] and was wondering if I should just CF the lip instead of paint it.

is it hard? does anyone have any DIY links?

 

[MNGSX]

CF would look good...

I have'nt worked with it myself..

I'm kind of thinking that a lip that extends under designed along the lines of the EVO's underpan would be nice.. It's the best way you can make the car cut thru the air better w/o leaving pieces on the street.

 

[miteclgst]

I did some stuff with Carbon fiber and I have to say it can be tough. It takes a lot of patients to get all of the weave lined up correctly. When you do fiberglass it dosn't matter how it looks when you lay it out because it will be covered (paint/bodywork). But carbon fiber needs to be laid out just right, it needs to be continuous, no piece work can be done. Check out www.fiberglast.com for their forums, they have a lot of knowledgeable people that post there.
Another thing to take into consideration is that the stuff is pretty expensive, it sucks when you buy a whole yard or so of carbon fiber and only turn out one or two good pieces. Like I said I tried it myself and this is what I came up with. I think it's like anything that takes a bit of skill to do, at first you use a lot of material to make a few good pieces, after you practice for a while you become more efficient and produce more pieces for the same amount of material.

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[blcknspo0ln]

looks good man, is the process the same as FG?

reason i ask is, I understand that laying the CF is difficult, but what do you do afterwards? did you use some sort of gel coat or clear, or both to finish it up?

 

[miteclgst]

This is just considered a run of the mill overlay. I made the fiberglass original, I then laid the carbon fiber/resin on top. The tough part is getting the carbon fiber to lay around corners, if you stretch it too much you will distort the weave. The Resin I used was an epoxy based 3:1 resin. I got my stuff from www.uscomposites.com The 3:1 resin is a clear resin that has a medium length dry time.
To do an overlay like this you would first mix up your resin. Next you will tape off an area of the weave a bit bigger than what you need, use like 3/4" masking tape. Then you cut the cloth by cutting down the center of the tape, this ensures that the weave won't get all messed up. You then have to make sure that you remove all air bubbles from the weave and totally soak it with resin. An easy way to do this is to get some clear plastic sheeting. (You can use saran wrap if you so desire or something else that is a little heavier) Place your cloth on the sheeting with the side that you will see facing down. Use a plastic bondo squeege to spread the resin over the piece and gently work out the air bubbles. Once the cloth is decently soaked in resin you can brush some resin on the overlay piece and pick up the entire plastic piece (w/cloth and resin mix on it) and lay it cloth side down on the piece you want to overlay. Now you you will have (in order from overlay piece to top) overlay piece, cloth/resin, plastic sheet. Now work the cloth to fit the contours of the piece you are covering, the plastic sheet will help prevent you from distorting the weave. Work the piece out so that it is covered nice. (On pieces that have corners it is suggested that you lay the piece so that the weave will hit the corner at a 45 degree angle). I leave the plastic on it until it dries (which takes about 3 hours or so). Next peal the plastic off; you will notice that the part will have a "texture" meaning you can feel the weave. This means that you need to apply clear coat to "level" the piece out. I suggest using the Duplicolor clear coat because of it's uv protection, unless you have access to actual "automotive grade" clearcoat if you do then use that. Next you will have to wetsand and buff the piece to complete the leveling process. I made a tech article about wetsanding and buffing and it can be found here: http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150016

I would do some research on exactly what sorts of resins to use, some people suggest a "surf board resin" or when you actually make molds they suggest a "bartop gelcoat". I don't know much about the products themselves, I attempted it a few times and had a few successful pieces, but it just didn't seem like ti was worth all of the aggrivation. I plan to make eyelids for my car so hopefully I will have some better luck..
Good luck and if you remain patient it should work out pretty well.

 

[MNGSX]

For a underpan... nose cone what ever that lower nose plate is on a EVO VIII could I use blue foam board to make a mold for a glass version... I'll have to shape it and run one layer of glass to the mold directly so I have a smooth surface for mold release right?

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[blcknspo0ln]

This is just considered a run of the mill overlay. I made the fiberglass original, I then laid the carbon fiber/resin on top. The tough part is getting the carbon fiber to lay around corners, if you stretch it too much you will distort the weave. The Resin I used was an epoxy based 3:1 resin. I got my stuff from www.uscomposites.com The 3:1 resin is a clear resin that has a medium length dry time.
To do an overlay like this you would first mix up your resin. Next you will tape off an area of the weave a bit bigger than what you need, use like 3/4" masking tape. Then you cut the cloth by cutting down the center of the tape, this ensures that the weave won't get all messed up. You then have to make sure that you remove all air bubbles from the weave and totally soak it with resin. An easy way to do this is to get some clear plastic sheeting. (You can use saran wrap if you so desire or something else that is a little heavier) Place your cloth on the sheeting with the side that you will see facing down. Use a plastic bondo squeege to spread the resin over the piece and gently work out the air bubbles. Once the cloth is decently soaked in resin you can brush some resin on the overlay piece and pick up the entire plastic piece (w/cloth and resin mix on it) and lay it cloth side down on the piece you want to overlay. Now you you will have (in order from overlay piece to top) overlay piece, cloth/resin, plastic sheet. Now work the cloth to fit the contours of the piece you are covering, the plastic sheet will help prevent you from distorting the weave. Work the piece out so that it is covered nice. (On pieces that have corners it is suggested that you lay the piece so that the weave will hit the corner at a 45 degree angle). I leave the plastic on it until it dries (which takes about 3 hours or so). Next peal the plastic off; you will notice that the part will have a "texture" meaning you can feel the weave. This means that you need to apply clear coat to "level" the piece out. I suggest using the Duplicolor clear coat because of it's uv protection, unless you have access to actual "automotive grade" clearcoat if you do then use that. Next you will have to wetsand and buff the piece to complete the leveling process. I made a tech article about wetsanding and buffing and it can be found here: http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150016

I would do some research on exactly what sorts of resins to use, some people suggest a "surf board resin" or when you actually make molds they suggest a "bartop gelcoat". I don't know much about the products themselves, I attempted it a few times and had a few successful pieces, but it just didn't seem like ti was worth all of the aggrivation. I plan to make eyelids for my car so hopefully I will have some better luck..
Good luck and if you remain patient it should work out pretty well.

thanks man, you explained that VERY well

 

[MNGSX]

Good can you make my part from my template from fiberglass....

I got too many pokers in the fire to try to learn glassing and get something that big done after learning.

PM..

 

[MaNGiNa24]

I did some stuff with Carbon fiber and I have to say it can be tough. It takes a lot of patients to get all of the weave lined up correctly. When you do fiberglass it dosn't matter how it looks when you lay it out because it will be covered (paint/bodywork). But carbon fiber needs to be laid out just right, it needs to be continuous, no piece work can be done. Check out www.fiberglast.com for their forums, they have a lot of knowledgeable people that post there.
Another thing to take into consideration is that the stuff is pretty expensive, it sucks when you buy a whole yard or so of carbon fiber and only turn out one or two good pieces. Like I said I tried it myself and this is what I came up with. I think it's like anything that takes a bit of skill to do, at first you use a lot of material to make a few good pieces, after you practice for a while you become more efficient and produce more pieces for the same amount of material.

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Do you have any more detailed pictures of that carbon fiber piece?

Your explanation was awesome, but just to make sure, did you actually apply any resin/epoxy or whatever to the actual visual carbon fiber surface? If you did then are the air bubbles that you are attempting to remove between the plastic and the c/f sheet, or the sheet and the mold?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, I've searched quite a bit and have yet to recieve any conscise answers.

 

[miteclgst]

Well I have done it a few ways... I did the center arm rest this way: First I put resin on the vinyl, then I laid on the carbon fiber and then I attempted to wet the entire piece by appling resin with a brush (as you would with fiberglass) The I used a body filler squeege to get all of the air bubbles out of the weave. This method worked.
The biggest PITA about carbon fiber work is that the resin must have a low viscosity so that it will be absorbed into the cloth. Because of the low viscosity it is impossible to build up the surface of the part with resin. THe resin will simply run off or collect in a low spot. Most places that do the work often will use a female mold when they make their parts. The female mold is a "negative" of what the final piece will look like. By making this mold perfectly smooth a perfect finish will result. When they do this process they will most likely be using a vacuum bagging method which allows excess resin to be "squeezed" from the part. This is a bit too expensive and time consuming for the average DIY. The DIYer will most likely just laminate the carbon fiber to the surface by either the method I explained here or the previous method. THis will will result in being able to "feel the weave" in the surface of the actual piece. So instead of leaving it that way people will apply clear coat to the part and then wetsand and buff it so that a nice surface will result. I don't know the details on clear gel coat. I just did things with clear and my results were OK.
If you search the website for HOT ROD magazine you will see that they have a tech article complete with pictures how to do some carbon fiber work. The part that they create is a inner door cover for a race car. This is nothing more than a flat piece of carbon fiber used to hide the inner door structure. In this case they simply did everything that I mentioned in the previous post up to wetting the cloth on the plastic. Once the worked out all the air bubbles they trasferred the carbon fiber to a piece of glass and then squeeged the air out of that. Since the glass is a perfectly smooth surface the side of the CF that lays against it will be perfectly smooth. There was no finish work necessary. All they had to do is clear coat it to protect it and cut it to size. (Carbon fiber - like fiberglass - will not stick to non-porous surfaces like, shiny metal, tin foil, plastic......)
Like I mentioned before the only real way to achieve a perfect finish without the wetsanding and buffing is to make a mold. The problem with a mold is that it is a heck of a lot of work to make it perfect and isn't practical when only producing a single part. Try researching on that www.fiberglast.com forum to see if anyone has experiance with clear gel coat. I would imagine that it would require a bit of equipment: spray gun, compressor.... but if you want to skip all of that just do it as I explained before with the duplicolor clear coat.

 

[MaNGiNa24]

Thank you very much, I appreciate the help.

 

[miteclgst]

Carbon fiber can be very frustrating, trust me I know the only thing that will help you is planning before you begin. Cut your piece way bigger than you acutally need it, lay it out on the part while it's dry so you can get some reference as to how you will lay it and make it fit. get your plastic and all your supplies you need before you mix anything. Once you do a "dry" run and you are confident that you know what the procedure will be, then start wetting things up. You won't produce a perfect piece the first time. Cloth is expensive so start off small first. The less contours the easier it will be. Mix more resin then you will actually need. Just be patient. Good Luck and post any questions you have, I will try to help you to the best of my knowledge.

 

[MaNGiNa24]

After searching that forum that you provided, they say to use epoxy on plastic instead of poly resin, I've searched quite a bit and definitely want to get started, I just wanna get all the materials ready.

 

[miteclgst]

It seems that the fiberglast forums, though they can be informative sometimes, suffer from the same plague that infects most other forums. Namely vaguely written replies or uninformative ones. I read a few posts about overlays and I came back more confused.
Fiberglast.com seems to have a large inventory but it seems to be mostly geared towards large or multiple productions. An example of this is that you can only buy clear gel coat in gallon sizes that are $50+ each. I don't know about you but I don't want to buy a gallon and find out that it's too difficult after only using a pint. UScomposites.com where I got most of my carbon fiber material has products that you can buy in more useable sizes. The problem is that the product descriptions are geared for people who have a pretty good understanding of composite materials. It would be nice if carbon fiber was like fiberglass and you can buy a can of resin and cloth and only be out $15. Then you can mess up all you want and it's no real loss. Practicing with $50 worth of carbon fiber product and not getting a useable piece is very discouraging to say the least. I guess a good rule would be to buy small quanitities first and see how it works for you, there is no sense in buying large amounts of materials only to find that it isn't your cup of tea...
It would be nice if anyone who visits this thread and knows of a dealer besides UScomposites or fiberglast could post up a link or some info. At least then maybe you could search for the best price.

blcknspo0ln - do you have any pics of that lip you made? just curious.

 

[blcknspo0ln]

ill get a pic of it soon. i'm actually thinking of making a female mold so i can produce them in the future. basically looks like a stock extension of the 2gb talon front.

btw, i ordered some CF and gonna get the epoxy off of the site you recommended. hopefully things turn out well

 

['96_Talon_TSi]

On fiberglast, one member said he used super77 to glue the carbon sheeting to the peice he was overlaying then proceeded to brush on an epoxy. Say i was to use this method then followed your (miteclgst) sanding and buffing technique. Do you think i would come out with a fairly smooth surface?

Or do you think i would be better off using super77 to glue the carbon to the peice im overlaying and simply shooting some clearcoat (hopefully reducing the risk of runs) and then sanding and polishing?

You're right though, the answers are usually very vauge and seems like a lot of guys don't post very often.

 

[miteclgst]

I believe that the glue would be more of a factor when overlaying large vertica areas such as quarter panels. In this case some people use glue while others spray black gel coat and begin laying the fiber down once it gets tacky.
No matter which method you use you will end up with a textured surface. (Unless you make a female mold, which is a totally different ball game). I noticed that using the saran wrap on top limited the grainy-ness of the final piece but didn't eliminate it totally. As for clear coating it, the only thing that will ensure the least amount of runs is to lay it as flat as possible and do several coats. The more coats the better, you need a pretty good build up in order to wetsand and buff the final part to a perfectly flat finish.
What I really don't like about the carbon fiber is that there is no set standard for doing it. Many people have different ideas, some of them are right and some are wrong. But I am troubled to find a site that says, do this, this, then this and you will end up with a nice piece. Or use "this" when you are covering "this". The forum seems to be the only place to get any information as to how others have done it and how successful they actually were. Searching the posts for actually information is like trying to spot an ant from an airplane though. Good information is hidden deep within threads. Also carbon fiber isn't something that is very cheap to "experiment with" Oh well good luck, have patients, hope for the best.

 

[MNGSX]

If you wanted something light and tough... Would you use glass, cf, a kevlar or a mix.. It does'nt need to be pretty.. I dont want the hacked POS look either but a show part no.

Just aeropanels on the underbody.. They check serious sports cars underbodies on wind tunnels.. I'm hoping to pick up a .10 sec or two....

 

[miteclgst]

Well the most common mistake people make when doing fiberglass work is they assume that the more resin you add the stronger the part will be. This isn't entirely true, the structural integrity comes from more layers of fiberglass mat than the addition of resin. Many places will tell you to squeege out any excess resin. Resin does make a great deal of weight also. I would think that 4 or so layers would probably be sufficient. Carbon fiber itself isn't very structurally sound unless it is added on top of fiberglass. Most carbon fiber fabrication is done with a fiberglass understructure. I believe that the architecture of the weave would make it stronger then the random structure of the mat. Also the carbon fiber itself is very tear resistant. It dries very hard. I have no experiance with kevlar so I don't know anything about it.

 

[MNGSX]

I have heard it is like working with glass but thirstier with the resin... Maybe I'll try kevlar or one of the other superfibers. There are a bunch of others they mostly end up going into like snowboards and stuff but they do make Jeep bodies out of the stuff that weight less than the glass ones and are tougher. I guess they just use less layers...

 

[theboogieman]

US Composites is a great vendor and the prices are nice as well. I have been going thru them almost exclusively for about 4 years now. www.fiberglast.com has gotten watered down and yes most of the replies are vague...try going over to www.icancomposites.com A few of us older forum members from fiberglast.com post over at "ican" now, plus fiberglast.com will not allow you to discuss other products than what they sell. Not to good for the guy trying to learn products and methods right? So try "ican".
Using the "bar top" coating is fine, but over the years I found that the surface will always stay somewhat soft...it is made to work this way to keep scratches to a minimum. But when that surface coat on a part is in a car that gets 180 degrees inside while sitting in a parking lot it deteriorates the integrity of the coating. It will get softer and can get depressions in the coating. And even though it is labled as UV resistant it will turn yellow after some time. Just depends how much your ride is in the sun and f your windows are tinted. If you are good at spraying paint you might want to consider spraying clear Duratec clear coat. This is high build and dries hard as a rock and buffs out to a brilliant shine. I have used it once but really don't need to use it any longer since we use molds.
My 2 cents:
US Composites = good prices and product
bar top coating = meh, try using Duratec, less time spent sanding and crap!!
kevlar = very resin thirsty and has to be LOW viscosity (buy some very good scissors)
that AFC pod = awesome job laminating Miteclgst, you should try moving up to molding soon...not hard at all once you do it once!
Laminating write up = very good explanation Miteclgst, you should go over to icancomposites and join that forum.

I have nothing to add really other than that, everything was well explained.
Leo

 

[blcknspo0ln]

blcknspo0ln - do you have any pics of that lip you made? just curious.

here you go