So I just got some 6 ounce carbon fiber cloth given to me by a neighbor who once did race car repairs at a speedway near me. I got like 10 feet of this stuff that looks to be about 4 feet wide. It was a freebie. He’s Irish and I’ll be seeing him and his equally drunky wife at an Irish pub on St Pat night. In a drunken stupor the other night he told me how much he liked me and gave me this fabric. Don’t ask.
I’m thinking about doing a deck in-lay on a board. So either talk me into doing this or talk me down. And if I do this, I suppose I’ll need to put a piece of 4 ounce regular fiberglass on top. Any special tricks of the trade that I need to know about with this fabric?
Hilarious.
Looking forward to what comes of this. I have not worked with CF, but I know this: you’re darn right you better cap it with something. Carbon failure is notorious and usually involves adjectives like “catastrophic”.
It would be nice to see a pic. Better to approach it knowing Eactly what you have. I would not do an inlay , but rather do the whole deck to the rail Apex. Lowel
CF is harder to store and cut (tows unravel), laminate (air bubbles and cap layer), sand (makes a sooty mess), and it costs 4-5-6x or more per yard than woven glass.
However, I have to admit that I do like it in small doses as long as it’s not overheating any foam.
Good idea about rail-to-rail. I think it flexes differently than to surrounding E or S glass and will probably form spider cracks around the juncture. We’ll see how this plays out. I got some extra EPS recently and will probably give it a shot this spring if we, on the east coast US, ever get out of this winter.
Just treat it like regular fabric. The hard part, if doing a trimmed inlay, will be finding the tape line. I did one recently with normal bottom and deck rail overlap (trimmed.) I masked off right along that trim line and laminated the carbon with a fiberglass stomp pad underneath in the foot zone. Before the epoxy cures rock hard, flip the excess back and make some razor cuts to the edge of the tape under the carbon. That’ll pretty much tell you where to trim the carbon. While it’s still in ‘green state’ (not fully cured), take a wooden seam roller and press down along the cutlines. I laminated a full single layer of clear fiberglass over the carbon extending around the rails to a lap on the bottom. This can be freelapped (untrimmed) and sanded smooth. I love the “catastrophic” claims. If it’s gonna break, it’s likely gonna break - with fiberglass or carbon. With full length carbon on both sides you’d have a lot of tensile strength that would prevent breakage. (and create a pretty stiff board) I’ve seen long stringerless prone paddleboards with carbon on both sides that did fine. Have also seen one or two that didn’t make it. Heck - I’ve seen bicycle frames made of steel that didn’t make it.
In that ‘golden hour’ of when the epoxy is still pliable, fold the overhang carbon fiber up and, how I think I understand it, etch/cut the underside of carbon fiber along the taped edge to effectively mark the cutline
Then when the epoxy is almost tackless but still a bit pliable, use a wallpaper roller on the top of the carbon fiber right on the inside edge of the cutlap to tack down the edge of the carbon fiber
Trim along the etched line on the carbon fiber
I’d imagine a light grinding of the fiberglass/carbon fiber juncture would be called for
Fiberglass deck with lap
Drink beer and enjoy?
Thanks! And I hope that bicycle frame failure didn’t occur on some long, fast descent.
Hi again - When I flip the excess back, it’s just so I can figure out where the tape edge really is. I take a razor blade and make a series of cuts perpendicular to the lap edge. I kind of ‘connect the dots’ (the perpendicular cuts) and follow along while trimming the lap.
Other ways include building up extra layers of tape and following the ridge, or building up extra layers of tape and grinding down to the tape after the epoxy cures.
I respect the guys who can do nice cosmetics with carbon cut laps. It’s easy to mess up and you can’t just throw an ‘invisible’ patch over it like on clear fiberglass work. In that sense it can’t be treated like regular glass as I said earlier.
