working with carbon fiber

[Guest lostmonkey]

im looking at making a fairing for my bike, that has no "glass" sorta like what you would see on a buell lightining but ive never worked with carbon fiber so what i need to know is weather i am going to be able to get any detail in the face im planing to put in the fairing i know that by not having it all smooth ill be loosing alot of the areodynamics but im also trying to add a little more then that

 

and if i find that this stuff is fairly easy to work with ill be doing hard bags to go with it and feet for the rear blinker housings

 

thanks for any advice and please forgive my spelling on those few words i misspelled

 

joe

[F344]

You Might want to talk to these guys.

 

https://www.cstsales.com/How_to_Articles/index.htm

 

Carbon fiber slivers are murder.

 

Be careful with this stuff, and good luck!

 

Frank

[Mike Stewart]

Tap plastics carries the different types of the carbon fiber weave and also the hardners and resins that you will need.

 

Working with carbon fiber is just like working with fiberglass. A mold needs to be made which to me is the hardest part. I always wanted to make a few things out of carbon fiber (fairing, alternator cover, fuel tank pillow) but the time needed is just not justified at this time. I ended up buying a carbon fiber buell fairing for $89.00 rather than spending that on just materials.

 

Good luck,

Mike

[badmotogoozer]

Just had my first experience using carbon fiber. It is very different than working with fiberglass. It is much stiffer, so you may find that detail is hard to do, especially compound curves. Yes, the splinters are a be-atch! It was also a lot more difficult getting the bubbles out. I had to use my fingers to work them out as a brush was useless. It doesn't want to stay where you put it so unless you have a two piece mold that sandwiches the CF, you will have to baby sit it until the resin starts to stiffen up.

 

These are just what I noticed doing it for the first time (before anyone tells me how wrong I am - I am no where near an expert, just my 2 centos)

 

Rj

[droydx]

If you are really serious about this you'll need to get some resources on how to mold composites. One of my other "hobbies" is building and flying high performance RC Sailplanes. Not little floaty things but verrrry fast rocket ship tyoe stuff that I fly up on mountain slopes. I make my own fuselages and wings from molds and composite fibers.

A brief rundown:

You'll need to make a master male pattern, then the female molds for the object. All the stuff required to do this is fairly expensive for one off's, and it takes a lot of time to make a good mold that can be reused. Carbon is stiff, expensive and tough to wet out. We usually use a cover of light fiberglass(1oz.) to hold the resin, promote a smooth gloss surface and get rid of most of the air bubbles. I have a vaccuum bag set up to pull negative pressure on the object, this pulls it down in the mold, excess epoxy resin (expensive) is pushed out through a release cloth on top of the carbon and into a bleeder material. So from the mold up you have fiberglass cover cloth, carbon main cloth, release film, and bleeder material all surrounded in a plastic bag to which you apply a vaccuum seal. Piece of Cake!

Any way, its a whole lot easier if someone else does this for you, plus the first stuff you do will look like Fred Flintstone made it I really don't see making any stuff for my Rosso Corsa, maybe an instrument panel... But making stuff out of composite materials is pretty cool, especially when you can take advantage of the various materials properties.

Good Luck Amigo!

Andy

[Guest lostmonkey]

looks like its going to be fiberglass then

 

easier to work and i know i can get the details i want

 

thanks for all the help guys