Fun With Carbon Fiber

Project Update!

The Carbon Fiber Handguard Deflector project has been updated. Click here to go directly to the project post.

I'm making some good progress in this one...

Teaser Pic


By the way, please feel free to rate this thread. You can find the Rating feature in the upper right hand corner of the page, just above the thread page numbers.

Thanks for taggin' along!

Ever think of working in plaster instead of foam? Those surforms do a great job shaping plaster.

Little air belt sanders work pretty good.

Cool thread!
I've been doing FG, CF, Kevlar(patches, gel coats), and plastic repairs(patches and welding) on Kayaks and canoes for over twenty years. I'll have to go back thru and see what you've been doing.
I'm not sure if you are aware but another great product for sanding foam is Dragon Skin...



I got it from a different source, which I can't remember the name of right off hand but I found that pic here...One piece will last a life time if just used on foam.


You can also make it from a piece of tin, a sharp nail, a hammer, a lot of time...and a lot of beer!

I can see how shaping a rough plaster form may work very nicely. I'll have to keep that in mind. Thanks, PBG!

bwalsh, welcome to the thread! That Dragon Skin looks like some mean stuff. I'm sure it would make quick work of some foam. Do you buy it in sheets and adapt it to your tooling/purpose? I might have to try making my own with your nail and tin technique. Thank you for the ideas!

How did you get into the canoe/kayak repari business?

I do a lot of kayaking with family and friends.I think that it would be a hoot to build a composite kayak someday. Maybe a fancy tandom open water boat made out of carbon, Kevlar, and some nice wood trim. That would be one fancy kayak.

I'm friends with a few well known(in the world of whitewater) FG whitewater Kayak boat builders. Here's a website for the only one left who still builds custom Kayaks for a living...

PS composites


EDIT:
BTW, here is another Glass distributor in the Bethesda MD area. I don't know if their prices are in line with who you buy from but there it is...

Sweet Composites

They are good folks.

Project Update!


The Carbon Fiber Handguard Deflector project has been updated. Click here to go directly to the project post.

The foam shaping has almost come to an end. Thank goodness!

Might want to rethink any polyester blend app..... as anything polyester will melt your foam. Even bondo is of a polyester blend. HAAAAALLLTTTTTT...... Even you are putting it on top of epoxy.... If it finds it's way through, a small pinhole, your screwed.

Project Update!

The Carbon Fiber Handguard Deflector project has been updated. Click here to go directly to the project post.

Finally we get down to some resin and glass work and a bit of trimming with the use of a very cool tool.

Teaser pic!

This is very good advice. However in this scenario I have taken measures to help keep this from happening. Hopefully I have all my basses covered like I think I do.

Good to hear. I did the same once, only to ring that the gases permitted through small pinholes, and deformed the foam..... It was polyester not bondo. As long as you are aware of the incompatability...... Which it sounds like you are..... :)

Looking good. Have you done much work with bondo? Pays dividends to apply as smoothly as possible, and not to add much more than you need. Was making a lot of unnecessary work for myself until I got the hang of that. Also, another thing I started doing was to do some preliminary sanding/shaping before the bondo hardens. There's about a 10 minute window when it's really great to work with. Not so wet that it will smear and ball-up when you sand it, but still soft enough that you can knock down the high spots with ease. Saves a ton of time/effort.

I'm no Bondo expert, that's for sure! How long after you apply the Bondo do you want to do your prelim sanding?

Hard to say, but you'll get a feel for it. Try slicing the high ridges off with a razor blade, and see if it cuts through cleanly, without sticking to the blade. Forgot to mention that shaving down those ridges with a razor blade also works really well. Forget the name of it, but there's a long thin cheese-grater-looking tool that makes quick work of shaping soft bondo (not shown). Then I usually switch to course files to even out those compound curves. Concave surfaces are a little more difficult, so shaping and sanding while soft makes all the difference.

Stanley Surform - But he's already got the small version (pictured above with the pink foam)

For foam it is also hard to beat an electric carving knife.

Project Update!

The Carbon Fiber Handguard Deflector project has been updated. Click here to go directly to the project post.

Let the sanding begin...

Teaser pic

I know most peole use bondo as a generic term for polyester body filler, that said I have never cared for bondo brand body filler. I find it to be a bit hard and that is doesn't sand very well. For an inexpensive filler I use Dynatron Ultralight and my favorite is Rage Gold, which ironiclly comes in a purple can. Rage gold is not quite 2x the price of ultralite but it sands so much easier that you end up saving enough time and sand paper to justify the extra cost. Rage gold also spreads mush nicer than the others so that also saves you time in sanding and additional coats.

Jesus- East bay color on Phelan ave in San Jose is a good supplier for paint and supplies and they deliver to businesses.

Very much enjoying your project thread, eagerly following along to learn, and one day build my own MC parts.

I've built boats, mostly plywood with one strip built dingy also (too time consuming but purrty). The cheese grater part mentioned is below, and when sharp are great for smooth n'fast finishing of foam and bondo. Like below I have one in my kitchen now. High quality ones from a good tool store run about $14 each and are far superior to big box store products.

Oh, and small foam rollers work a bit better for gel coat and primer than a brush.



Thx

Thanks for the tips. The pic of tools is very useful as well. I have a good selection of files, but I never thought to use them. I'll have to give that a try.

I think that I'll also give a different type of body filler a try as well. The biggest thing that I don't like about Bondo is that it sets way to fast.

Hey, Red! Thank you so much for this post. As I mentioned in my reply to Jesus, I am ready to try another body filler. I think that I'll give Rage Gold a try. Do you feel that the Rage product has a longer open time compared to regular Bondo?

Hey, Fishenough! Thanks for hanging out, man!

The grater that you posted looks like it would make short work of foam and bondo. I'm going to have to keep my eye out for one of those.

I thought about using a foam roller, but I didn't think that it would hold up to the MEKP/poly products. Do you think that it would have?

Are you thinking of starting a project?

Project Update!


The Carbon Fiber Handguard Deflector project has been updated. Click here to go directly to the project post.


The mystery of the flange has been solved...

Teaser pic