Carbon Fibre Case

[drakore]

Hello everyone,

I am in the process of building a carbon fibre case. It consists of balsa wood laminated in carbon fibre. Here are some pics of some of the work I have done.

Enjoy

























Sorry they are kind of out of order, and i suck with the camera. I will post better ones once by new backplate arrives after being cut. The old backplate was punched aluminum, the new one is water cut titanium

[illidan]

oooo sweet... this is gonna be awesome


subd

[soundood]

oooohhhhhh carbon fibre, i love the look of it, when its polished.

im looking forward to this one

[Thrilla]

lol dude I'm just learning to work with CF and other composites hahaha, looks like you beat me to it :P I'm waiting for my vacuum ATM.

[drakore]

Good luck with the vacuuming! Are you going to use a foam core? We wanted to keep the bottom piece wooden on the inside to absorb some vibration and it is so much easier to work with for mounting.

CF is such a pain , but worth it.

[Ch3ck5um]

Great idea! really looking forward to seeing it!

[Thrilla]

Good luck with the vacuuming! Are you going to use a foam core? We wanted to keep the bottom piece wooden on the inside to absorb some vibration and it is so much easier to work with for mounting.

CF is such a pain , but worth it.

I plan to use 6 oz fiberglass mat as structure (don't see a reason to waste $50/yard CF on the inside), haven't figured out what to use for frame yet, thinking angled s-glass. Anyway my case is long from even getting started, gotta fix my motorbike first

CF is not a pain if you've worked with kevlar

[drakore]

Here is the CAD drawing of the new back piece. Pretty much the same as the old one, a few adjustments. The new one is titanium and will be water cut sometime this week along with the drive cages.

[gatecrasherlok]

Wow a full carbon fibre case would be so nice. Light yet durable. That carbon fibre sheet must have cost alot though. That I could not stomach.

[drakore]

The sheet wasn't tooo bad, i think it cost me $170. Luckily my friend had some unidirectional stuff left over from his car wing, so i was allowed to use that for free

[Lightning98]

I have to admit that CF does look pretty good, so you could just use it for the exterior look?
But anyways, most composite materials are pretty easy to work with once you've done a couple of peaces...

Oh, and if you plan to have the wood as the structural element, and CF as the appearance you don't really need to use vacuum... just be thorough with the brush But if you want the CF to load the entire case (meaning lightness, rigidity... ) use more layers, and definatley go with vacuum.

But don't think its gonna be a quick build if you plan on doing it a bit every day it will take some time... but in any case, good luck with it, and if you don't have a lot of experience with CF, practice with fiberglass, its a bunch cheaper.

[drakore]

We were able to get the base fairly rigid with 2 layers of unidirectional and 1 layer of twill. Unfortunately, i still had to put an aluminum bar in because the the piece was not perfectly flat. The load on the side and top pieces won't be much, so laminating should be fine. The wood can't support any weight since we are using balsa, but it makes it so much easier to do instead of making a mold. Fortunately my friend has a fair amount of experience, so it has saved me a ton of time

Hahaha you are definitely right, we are about 2 months in now, probably another 2 to go. Right now I am just working on getting the titanium stuff cut and all the fasteners. I had to take Friday off work so i can put a full days work on this :P

I have to admit that CF does look pretty good, so you could just use it for the exterior look?
But anyways, most composite materials are pretty easy to work with once you've done a couple of peaces...

Oh, and if you plan to have the wood as the structural element, and CF as the appearance you don't really need to use vacuum... just be thorough with the brush But if you want the CF to load the entire case (meaning lightness, rigidity... ) use more layers, and definatley go with vacuum.

But don't think its gonna be a quick build if you plan on doing it a bit every day it will take some time... but in any case, good luck with it, and if you don't have a lot of experience with CF, practice with fiberglass, its a bunch cheaper.

[Jamesrt2004]

why not some MDF instead of the balsa? be a bit sturdier and react less to heat?

[Solarfall]

why not some MDF instead of the balsa? be a bit sturdier and react less to heat?

im guessing cos of the weight thing, balsa is light as feather and easier to work with..

interesting project for sure, i will be keeping my eye on this one

[Wookie Man]

It looks great, I'll definitely be coming back to this thread.

[drakore]

You are absolutely correct, the underlying theme of the project is strength to weight ratio. I know it is rather excessive, but this is xtremesystems after all

im guessing cos of the weight thing, balsa is light as feather and easier to work with..

interesting project for sure, i will be keeping my eye on this one

[Knight]

I would be careful using balsa wood because the epoxy might warp it when you wet it out.

[drakore]

Hello everyone, i know this thread has gone dead for a while. I have been doing a lot of CAD work and planning out getting the stuff to be waterjet. There were a lot of hours spent measuring and getting everything perfect.

Here are some pics of the waterjet pieces, however there are a couple more to come.

Enjoy!







































Tomorrow I will be posting images of us laying carbon fibre for the top piece.

[grasskicker509]

about time someone tried cf

[Holst]

Nice project

Next time you take photos (im assuming your using a phone)

Find something big like a table and hold the camera about two ft away and focus onto it, keep the button held down and then hold whatever you want to photograph the same distance from the camera to get the focus right. That way you are less likely to get blurry pics

[drakore]

Nice project

Next time you take photos (im assuming your using a phone)

Find something big like a table and hold the camera about two ft away and focus onto it, keep the button held down and then hold whatever you want to photograph the same distance from the camera to get the focus right. That way you are less likely to get blurry pics

Thanks for the advice! I am using an old digital camera. I also suck at taking pictures . I will try a different camera tonight.

[trekie86]

Very cool, interested in seeing the finished result!

[sinticfury]

The words CARBON FIBRE get me all worked up xD, too much need for speed lololl. Well I like where this is going.

[drakore]

Ok as promised here are the pics of us layering half of the top piece. The first couple of pictures are unilateral carbon and the last bunch are of twill. We ended up doing 1 layer of unilateral and 2 layers of twill.

Enjoy

[trekie86]

How long does it take to dry? Looks cool.