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i was wonder if anybody here new about carbon fiber....... what i want to do is buy a sheet of carbon fiber fabric and lay it over some of my stock parts..... does any body know how to make the carbon fiber harden after i put it over something...i know its has something to do with epoxy or resin or something like that.....how do you apply that stuff so it gives the carbon fiber a deep shiny 3D look?.....any help please

 
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What do you want to put it over and why? The point of carbon fiber is lightweight. To put it over another part would defeat the purpose. As far as shiny 3d it is just very well polished.

 
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its just for looks.....i actually want to put it on a few small peices on my motorcycle.....and it is a fabric, kinda like a rough cloth....you cant polish the fabric alone....i think it needs some stuff put over it to harden it....my question, was what is that stuff and how do you apply it?...

 
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post a pic when u do it...

 
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I don't know much about it but, from my understanding it is similar to fiberglass in the sense it requires resin to harden. If you really want to know I would call FiberImages and ask them. They have some of the shiniest carbon fiber I have veer seen. Check their web site FiberImages

 
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<< its just for looks.....i actually want to put it on a few small peices on my motorcycle.....and it is a fabric, kinda like a rough cloth....you cant polish the fabric alone....i think it needs some stuff put over it to harden it....my question, was what is that stuff and how do you apply it?... >>



if you're just doing it for looks and not for the strength/lightweight properties of carbon fibre then why not get some of the better carbon fiber vinyl stickers hahah..
some of the better ones look pretty convincing down to a slight texture.

 
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ok, our shop fabricates carbon fiber and what you want to do is possible, but i hope its gonna be straight/flat or its gonna be a lil more tricky...we get ours from US composites...just do a search on the web for it, you should find there webpage. what you do is get some quality floodcoat resin, its more expencive but its the equilivalent of about 150 layers of clearcoat and its self-leveling so you dont get bumps, agian if you talk to US composites they should tell you where to get it, or else you could go to home depot.

your gonna need to wet sand it and be VERY careful when your applying the resin because you have a tendancy to get air bubbles in it and it ruins the look of the piece. anyone can make carbon if they know how to make fiberglass, but making it look good is another story all togeather. just take your time and experament first on things you dont mind getting messed up.


edit: be careful not to add to much hardener to the resin tho carbon is a time sensitive object.

 
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http://www.calpoly.edu/~sciccare/my%20install/

there ya go. pics of semi-finished product. from there, you have to sand sand sand! then you bust out teh varnish and make is so shiny you blind people [IMG]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/IMG]

use an epoxy resin, yeah. two stage is best. I used a marine grade.

 
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I should say that I left mine only partially finished because I liked the texture at teh time. ive fixed that on teh deck panel and i still gotta apply teh varnish...