Carbon Fiber

After researching carbon fiber i discovered that the process to make something is very long. you have to make the negative mold because you want the smooth finished look on the out side. then you have to apply layers of mold release wax so the CF comes off the mold nicely after curing. One they wax has been applied you apply the CF. There are three different ways that the CF can be applied. Wet Laying, which is applying the CF dry to the mold and then pouring the epoxy on it and spreading it over all the CF. Another technique is Induction. the dry CF is applied to the mold and then placed in a vacuum bag. then the resin is sucked into the mold by the vacuum. The third technique is Pre-preg. In this technique the CF cloth itself comes pre-impregnated with a thin layer of resin. This cloth usually needs to be kept at a rather low temperature to keep it from hardening/bonding, and then when it is layed up and heated it hardens and bonds with the other layers of CF. The technique i will be using is wet laying because it seems the least difficult. With this technique i have to test two different ways of finishing it, vacuum bagging or sand bagging. Vacuum bagging is when you place the mold with the wet layed CF in a bag with a vacuum attached to it. This pulls the CF closer to the mold and giving you a stronger more accurate end product. Sand bagging is placing bags of sand on top of the CF in teh mold to keep it in place and apply some pressure. something else i want to test is when making a tube like form should i create the shape itself and wet lay over top the mold or make a two part negative and wet lay those parts and connect them. Finally i want to test to see if i can you blue foam for the molds instead of yellow foam or mdf.

Materials i am gonna need for this are:
MDF
Yellow foam
blue foam
mold release wax
carbon fiber
epoxy
vacuum bag
sand
plastic bags
and prob more once i start the experiments





http://www.vaglinks.com/Docs/Misc/CarbonFiberHowTo2.pdf

http://www.instructables.com/id/SIZU7BLF7AVJ8SD/

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/technical-stuff/9521-pics-carbon-fiber-seat-how-handmade-fsae.html