Carbon Fibre Case

[TheCarLessDriven]

My friend works at Scaled Composites in Mojave (The company who builds/built the "Space Ship 1" for Virgin galactic, and is building Space Ship 2.) He works with Carbon Fiber all day, and they have literally tons and tons of scraps left over every day, so I'm going to have him wrap some of my new case in Carbon Fibre. This isn't "aerospace" grade stuff, this is SPACE grade.

[RADCOM]

Never mind the case thats a lovely pool table.....only kidding suscribed

[drakore]

How long does it take to dry? Looks cool.

It takes about 8 hours to dry I think. We always just leave it over night to be safe. Tonight is scheduled to do the other side, unfortunately we are out of unilateral. However 3 pieces of twill will be strong enough.

[trekie86]

When I'm doing any type of glue/epoxy/adhesive stuff, I always let it try longer than its supposed to. The last thing I want is the chair, or whatever, that I glued together to just fall apart when I'm sitting in it or using it.

[drakore]

Yeah precisely. Although when you're starring at it, it is hard not to play with it

[drakore]

Here are some pics of us doing the other side of the top piece. This one is 3 pieces of twill. This is intended to be the show side, so the last layer was done to near perfection. Unfortunately it is not space grade

We had to level the balsa with a bunch of wood filler. Unfortunately we were a bit to hasty sanding this side 2 nights ago, oh well it was an easy fix.















This is my friend Mark who has been helping me with everything. He helped me do all the Solid Edge drawings for the titanium stuff. He has pretty much done all the carbon fibre layering. I usually just handle the cutting and measuring.


This is the final outcome:

[dro]

love the fabrication work
interesting material to work with
:thumbs:

[trekie86]

Yeah precisely. Although when you're starring at it, it is hard not to play with it

I know, I'm a futser. I love to play with anything I come across. My wife hates taking me to stores that have gadgets in it, I just want to try all of them. Worse yet, when its put together wrong or not working, I try to fix it...in the store.

Anyway, the CF looks very cool. I commend your dedication, this is going to be a long process. I can't wait until I have a workspace to fabricate things of my own.

[drakore]

I'm kind of unsure how to finish the titanium. I just got back the pieces from sand blasting, but they are very matte. I am going to try clear coating one of them and see how it turns out.

Anyone have any suggestions? I have never worked with titanium before.

[eth0s]

To polish titanium get one of the waxy or liquid polishes for chrome or stainless steel from the automotive parts store. Get your polish and use a soft cloth and rub like crazy! And soon you'll have forearms like Popeye! Or better yet, use a buffing wheel on a sander. Or i guess you could use a dremel with a buffing attachment, but it's going to take a long time with that little dremel, if you have a lot of surface area to polish. I'm not sure from your pics how much titanium you are going to use in the final product.

[drakore]

it is a fair amount. I just clear coated the sandblasted piece and it came out really nice. So i'm thinking i may go that route.

[Hidetaka]

Damn, all this carbon fibre :>~ [<- drooling]

What kind of resin did you use on it? I've just tried making a simple radbox of glassfibre but it looks $#!7 cause the resin is sort of clouded yellow-ish [+ I ran out of it halfway through -.-].

[drakore]

I can't remember, but we used it with a medium hardener. I'll grab you the info when I get home tonight.

[sinticfury]

Wow cant wait till its done, how many layers of fabric you using???

[indiecom]

Good work n conratulations....

[drakore]

Wow cant wait till its done, how many layers of fabric you using???

3 layers each side

[drakore]

Thanks for the support guys!!! I am going to be updating the thread this week with some more layer pics and (hopefully) final sand blasted titanium pieces

[VisBits]

Nifty, I always wondered if people would play with carbon fiber for there setup.

[Solarfall]

hey drakore im curious what is that stuff that you are using to "glue" the carbon fiber on to the balsa wood when your making those layers of carbon fiber ? is it epoxy or resin or maybe something else ?

[drakore]

hey drakore im curious what is that stuff that you are using to "glue" the carbon fiber on to the balsa wood when your making those layers of carbon fiber ? is it epoxy or resin or maybe something else ?

Hi Solarfall,

I am using a 2 part epoxy system. It is a 2:1 ratio of resin to hardener. Both are medium grade, so it takes about 8-12 hours to dry and about 15-30 minutes to get tacky.

[PradaG]

Fantastic job

i love seeing the step by step work w/ the carbon

i am green w/ envy....you have access to space grade carbon

if you have some extra scraps...you can send them my way

looking forward to your next update

[drakore]

Fantastic job

i love seeing the step by step work w/ the carbon

i am green w/ envy....you have access to space grade carbon

if you have some extra scraps...you can send them my way

looking forward to your next update

Hahaha thanks!

I am envious of your internet connectivity. I only get 12 Mbit download and like 900Kbit upload.

[grasskicker509]

cant wait for more updates...looks nice

[drakore]

Hello everyone,

I finished clear coating the sand blasted titanium pieces. They turned out really nicely, enjoy!

These ones are before clear coating:









These ones are after clear coating:

[trekie86]

Those titanium pieces looks incredible. With the carbon fibre and the titanium, this case is really going to be something. Curious, how much did you spend on titanium?