Making stuff out of carbon fibre?

[Robinxr4i]

I have just brought a spare bonnet for £10 (which I was going to do a chequer paint job on) I was thinking about making it in to a carbon fibre one out of it instead .

Can I use the bonnet skin to build up a carbon fibre replacement skin and then attach it to the original bonnet frame?

I know there was a guy who made a inlet manifold for his Imp out of carbon fibre?

How much is it going to cost, and how do you make it?

Robin

p.s. this is probably a pipe dream but it sounds like a good idea ;D

[Dez]

ive got a contact who can do it- he makes carbon race bits for scooters.

its not cheap through, roughly 4x the cost of fiberglass, which he also does.

I was thinking of some J-style arches in carbon rather than glass, but they'd cost about £300

[CR500Dom]

No
You can Take a mold from your bonnet and then lay up a carbon skin inside that, but you would get a better result and probably cheaper by buying one off the shelf

Its a lot of work, and you need a fair amount of Kit and space to do it properly

Possible as Jamesthemadproffessor has shown on the Imp and GTM fella has done the Carbon front end for his GTM.

I have made Carbon fuel tanks for bikes and will do some more carbon stuff for the Kadett eventually but it is a lot of work

[fastdub]

I'm making some stuff for my bug out of carbon at the mo

and its not the creation of it that's the ball ache. its the making of the plug, and the making of the mould

but ive got 25 free metres of carbon

[devilishdesigner]

cheaper adn easier just to wrap the spare bonnet in carbonfibre so it looks like the real thing, but the biggest challenge in making the stuff look good is actually keeping the sheet straight (no twists or wonky bits to ruin the effect)

[fastdub]

devilishdesigner said:

cheaper adn easier just to wrap the spare bonnet in carbonfibre so it looks like the real thing, but the biggest challenge in making the stuff look good is actually keeping the sheet straight (no twists or wonky bits to ruin the effect)

I'm assuming thats a wind up ?

[trg1984]

no to sound like a total chav but what about carbon look fablon, just stick it on

[devilishdesigner]

fastdub said:

devilishdesigner said:

cheaper adn easier just to wrap the spare bonnet in carbonfibre so it looks like the real thing, but the biggest challenge in making the stuff look good is actually keeping the sheet straight (no twists or wonky bits to ruin the effect)

I'm assuming thats a wind up ?

hey, its a cheap bonnet, have you ever played with fibreglass or carbonfibre? fibreglass is OK to work with (I have re-glassed a few surfboards) but it is never straight, it is just lucky thet it becomes pretty well transparent so you cant tell, or you can paint over it. if you want the carbonfibre appearance, making a mould would be timeconsuming, take a fair bit of fibreglass, and then you would have to manage to align teh carbonfibre fabric perfectly inside the mould or it'l look terrible, not to mention that the cost of all that fibreglass and resin and carbonfibre would make the cheap original bonnet redundant. since he had suggested earlier using the steel pressed frame and a carbonfibre skin, why not just go over the whole bonnet? its not as if the weight difference will turn the car from a smoking street machine to a shoiping trolley.

[reanimation]

I guess the bonnet if carefully driled or cut out could be used some how as a frame....

I was plotting to use CF in the future. Gonna be one big messy learning curve then.

[gofasterpinch]

thats how ive used my fibreglass outer skin. bought a scrap bonnet, drilled a load of "speed holes" in the inner skin, then carefully ground the folded edges off and cut through the bonded sections with a cheese wire. then i stuck it to my fibreglass skin with PU Sealer (sikaflex, tigerseal or similar)

[fastdub]

devilishdesigner said:

fastdub said:

I'm assuming thats a wind up ?

hey, its a cheap bonnet, have you ever played with fibreglass or carbonfibre? fibreglass is OK to work with (I have re-glassed a few surfboards) but it is never straight, it is just lucky thet it becomes pretty well transparent so you cant tell, or you can paint over it. if you want the carbonfibre appearance, making a mould would be timeconsuming, take a fair bit of fibreglass, and then you would have to manage to align teh carbonfibre fabric perfectly inside the mould or it'l look terrible, not to mention that the cost of all that fibreglass and resin and carbonfibre would make the cheap original bonnet redundant. since he had suggested earlier using the steel pressed frame and a carbonfibre skin, why not just go over the whole bonnet? its not as if the weight difference will turn the car from a smoking street machine to a shoiping trolley.

the main reason not to do it like that is because it would look ridiculous

regardless of whether or not its time consuming or expensive, the way i pointed out IS the way its done. the only other way is the one for professionals, and thats using pre preg carbon fibre and bagging it up and putting it in an autoclave.

[motherofgod]

Could any tell me where I can buy bigish sheets from..............still want more

James

P.s Car passed MOT today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[rangerbob]

This is where I get mine from.

www.polyfibre.co.uk

enjoy