How to Overlay Carbon Fiber on Parts

[Three O Five 8g]

This is a great tutorial on how to overlay carbon fiber onto peice of your car. It's very straight foward and fairly easy. If you interested in finding out more about composite materials and how to use them you may go to www.fibreglast.com and go to the forums. It will teach you alot about fiberglass as well as other material such as carbon fiber and Kevlar.

Hint: A cheap alternative to carbon fiber (Since right now there is a shortage) is to buy Black Fiberglass (Twill Weave). It cost about half the price of real carbon fiber and looks just like it. Search for it and you'll find places that sell it. Yes I know many of you don't think that fiberglass comes in black but it is dyed fiberglass and put it next to carbon fiber and it looks just like it (If you buy the twill weave black fiberglass).

<span style='color:red'>Basic process of overlaying carbon fiber:

1.Sand the piece down but make sure you paint the piece black so when you overlay it will be black underneath.

2. Spray 3m adhesive, You can get it at Home Depot. You spray it a little at a time or you can spread it with something across the part , wait for the adhesive to get a bit tacky to put the carbon fiber cloth on the part.

3 Make sure the part is holding good, make sure u spray the corners good because if not when you resin the peice, it will bubble up on you and not adhere properly to the peice.

4. Let the peice with the carbon fiber cloth dry for about 20-30 minutes, then lay a thin layer of resin/epoxy, You can used the surfboard resin it dries clear or go to any automotive paint store and buy epoxy. Lay about 3 layers of resin/epoxy and last layer is the resin with the wax aditive so total of 4 layers of resin.

5. Let the peice dry for couple of days at least a day or two so that it may cure and then have fun sanding it. Use 100 grid, then 150, 250 , and so on until you reach 1000 then wet sand 1000 grid then 2000 and finally once your done sanding it, spray a clear coat on top to get the shine and uv protective but dont buy the clear at you local car shop buy the good clear at the automotive paint shops. It comes in a spray can and it cost about $15.</span>

Here is the tutorial. Have fun and practice. Take your time. That is very important! You must have Acrobat reader to view it so if you do not have it download it at www.adobe.com


http://www.synapsemotorsport.com/Library/S...ynapseCFone.pdf

[8G_GTZ]

only complaint I have is the sanding part. If you jump from 250 to 1000, you will have the funnest and longest part of the project right there. You need to buy all of the sand GRITS in between like 300-320-400 and so on up to 1000 or else you will have a hell of a time getting those scratches out in the end.

Just a heads up.

Steve

[Stewi]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(8G_GTZ)</div><div class='quotemain'>only complaint I have is the sanding part. If you jump from 250 to 1000, you will have the funnest and longest part of the project right there. You need to buy all of the sand GRITS in between like 300-320-400 and so on up to 1000 or else you will have a hell of a time getting those scratches out in the end.

Just a heads up.

Steve</div>

I agree 150%. I tried the same when sanding and prepping my engine bay for paint, wasnt fun. SO then i just got every grit between 300-1000 and it worked well.

[Three O Five 8g]

Sorry for the misunderstanding, what I meant was you should use all the grits in sanding... Didn't mean it to jump from 250 to 1000

Thanks for the heads up. I fixed it so people won't get confused.