Awesome! When in the process do you hook up the vacuum bag? Also, what clearcoat do you use to make sure the carbon fiber doesn't fade? Where can you buy the vacuum bag? Sorry about all the questions, but I'm really interested! Thanks! --Bryson
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07:53 PM
TaurusThug Member
Posts: 4271 From: Simpsonville, SC Registered: Aug 2003
Howard, have you noticed your carpet in your house looking more like carbon fibers all the time or is it just me? Had to reply to this as I have car parts in the oven right now giving them a post cure. After weeks of making molds and having all kinds of fun (?) my project is starting to take shape. I've been making an air duct setup to the front brakes of the race car. Lots of re-do on prototyping. This stuff is very interesting, very messy if you sand and grind, and very itchy. I bought a good face shield and many gloves. This stuff can make splinters that are very sharp and nasty and potentially dangerous. I also bought a book on composites if iI ever read it, I can learn to do this properly. I used to want a clean room for engine assembly etc. Now I need a "dirty room" for this stuff. I've been watching a friend make bodies, pods, wings etc out of kevlar or carbon for almost 15 years. Now I'm finally hooked. I thought of carbon fiber x-mas cards for my motor head friends! The stuff cuts nicely, machines and grinds well and the finished part is fixable or can be modified easily. Styrafoam works nicely for forms (with epoxy resin only) as well as countless other things. Aircraft Spruce is a good supplier for the materials of all kinds. Also got some carbon from ebay. Still waiting for my friend to get the government ultra secret high temp epoxy used on the leading edge of fighter plane wings. I'm not holding my breath for this however. For years I wanted to make intake manifolds, need the good resin. Have fun and don't breathe the sanding dust!
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09:04 PM
Howard_Sacks Member
Posts: 1871 From: Cherry Hill, NJ Registered: Apr 2001
Bryson, I hook up the vacuum after I apply the resin to the dry carbon. You could also pull vacuum on dry carbon and hook up a fitting connected to a bucket of resin to do vacuum assisted RTM. We use PPG Omni. No particular reason. It's quality and not too expensive. You can get vacuum supplies from Aircraft Spruce like suggested by Mike.
Tarusthug, we are producing these. The cost is $500 + a crating and shipping fee. They are not meant to be an OEM replacement. They are lightweight and for real racers.
[This message has been edited by Howard_Sacks (edited 11-11-2004).]
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10:05 PM
bryson Member
Posts: 737 From: Mt. Pleasant, SC, USA Registered: Sep 2002
Have you considered trying to take a mold of the underside and possibly do the same thing, then bond the two together? If I dive into this over next summer, I think I would try this because my car is a street car so I would like to drop a little weight off the rear end (the reason I also went with a 4cyl) and, who am I kidding, it looks really cool. I was just wondering your opinion on this. We are about to start making our carbon fiber/aluminum honeycomb tub for our Formula SAE car. Have you worked with any pre-preg CF? I'm pretty excited to see how it goes, and hopefully I can get some practice making a few parts. About how much does one of those vacuum bags run? (if you don't mind me asking -- you can PM me if you would like). Thanks! --Bryson
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10:27 PM
FastIndyFiero Member
Posts: 2545 From: Wichita, KS Registered: Aug 2002
Thanks for the reply mike. The carpet thing is just you. :-) The splinters and dust are nasty. For a little bit, I was having a reaction to the resin system but for now, it went away.
The hardest part of doing this stuff is the design and mold making. Any monkey can do the lay up.
Governnent secret epoxy sounds cool.
I also like using foam for bucks and molds:
Foamula R
Bondo'd up
Ready for lay up
quote
Originally posted by MikeW:
Howard, have you noticed your carpet in your house looking more like carbon fibers all the time or is it just me? Had to reply to this as I have car parts in the oven right now giving them a post cure. After weeks of making molds and having all kinds of fun (?) my project is starting to take shape. I've been making an air duct setup to the front brakes of the race car. Lots of re-do on prototyping. This stuff is very interesting, very messy if you sand and grind, and very itchy. I bought a good face shield and many gloves. This stuff can make splinters that are very sharp and nasty and potentially dangerous. I also bought a book on composites if iI ever read it, I can learn to do this properly. I used to want a clean room for engine assembly etc. Now I need a "dirty room" for this stuff. I've been watching a friend make bodies, pods, wings etc out of kevlar or carbon for almost 15 years. Now I'm finally hooked. I thought of carbon fiber x-mas cards for my motor head friends! The stuff cuts nicely, machines and grinds well and the finished part is fixable or can be modified easily. Styrafoam works nicely for forms (with epoxy resin only) as well as countless other things. Aircraft Spruce is a good supplier for the materials of all kinds. Also got some carbon from ebay. Still waiting for my friend to get the government ultra secret high temp epoxy used on the leading edge of fighter plane wings. I'm not holding my breath for this however. For years I wanted to make intake manifolds, need the good resin. Have fun and don't breathe the sanding dust!
[This message has been edited by Howard_Sacks (edited 11-12-2004).]
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11:56 PM
Nov 12th, 2004
Howard_Sacks Member
Posts: 1871 From: Cherry Hill, NJ Registered: Apr 2001
Originally I had thought about doing the underside. Now I'm content with hood pins. Less weight and less work. There's no reason you couldn't do the underside for the bottom part the same way.
Formula SAE is a great experience. I really value the time I spent with my university, Drexel, doing that program. I actually just attended a lecture with Doug Milliken at my old school where about 50 FSAE kids from universities from all over the place also came.
I have worked with pre-preg. It is great for structural parts and it can also cut costs in a production environment. Wet lay up isn't that bad though. Pre-preg is not a holy grail that fixes everything.
Cost of the bag depends on the size. You can get costs for all the raw materials from aircraft spruce.
quote
Originally posted by bryson:
Have you considered trying to take a mold of the underside and possibly do the same thing, then bond the two together? If I dive into this over next summer, I think I would try this because my car is a street car so I would like to drop a little weight off the rear end (the reason I also went with a 4cyl) and, who am I kidding, it looks really cool. I was just wondering your opinion on this. We are about to start making our carbon fiber/aluminum honeycomb tub for our Formula SAE car. Have you worked with any pre-preg CF? I'm pretty excited to see how it goes, and hopefully I can get some practice making a few parts. About how much does one of those vacuum bags run? (if you don't mind me asking -- you can PM me if you would like). Thanks! --Bryson
[This message has been edited by Howard_Sacks (edited 11-12-2004).]
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12:04 AM
Howard_Sacks Member
Posts: 1871 From: Cherry Hill, NJ Registered: Apr 2001
Thats just how the part comes out of the mold. You can see Mike trimming that and the top of the part in a later picture.
I'm talking about the yellowing on the edge inside of the trimming area. I can't remember the link to the pic where I first saw it (have it saved on my PC), but it wasn't in this thread.
Great info, BTW.
Edit: by inside, I mean not to be trimmed.
[This message has been edited by FastIndyFiero (edited 11-12-2004).]
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12:57 AM
Howard_Sacks Member
Posts: 1871 From: Cherry Hill, NJ Registered: Apr 2001
These are hand made parts. Each one is a little different. There are some cosmetic flaws. It is a continuous improvement process. Each one comes out a little nicer as improvements are made to the lay up process and even the mold itself is modified. It isn't like fiberglass where you have a solid flat gel coat covering everything up. Every flaw is there.
What you might have seen was an area with a higher then normal resin content, maybe some mold release wax that wasn't completely buffed out or it might have even just been the reflection of the light.
quote
Originally posted by FastIndyFiero:
I'm talking about the yellowing on the edge inside of the trimming area. I can't remember the link to the pic where I first saw it (have it saved on my PC), but it wasn't in this thread.
Great info, BTW.
Edit: by inside, I mean not to be trimmed.
[This message has been edited by Howard_Sacks (edited 11-12-2004).]
