carbon fiber questions

Well I'm thinking of a project (but I won't tell anyone about it yet for fear of being laughed at) I was considering aluminum at first but then I saw that mcmaster and other merchants have carbon fiber sheets for sale.

My question is, What do you use to bond it and what kinds of bonds can you expect? Can you make it as smooth as one uses disolvent cement on acrylic, or do you have to first fit the parts as well as possible and then use some sort of epoxy.

It's more expensive than aluminum, but man it would be fun to use.

After a light sanding at the edge(s) to be joined, you need to use some carbon fiber tape (it's just strips of plain fabric) and some fiberglass resin to join them.
The sheets are tough, but you need some material curving around the joint for any real strength or it will just snap there.

Fabric tape is just plain fabric strips, usually with a bonded edge so it won't unravel. You can also use fiberglass tape too, as they use the same resin.

There's 3 types of resin. Polyester, Vinylester, and Epoxy. Polyester is the most common, but vinylester is quickly gaining because of it's superior strength and lesser water absorbsion properties for not that much more dough.
I've not used the epoxy type, but the mixing ratios and measuring cups/pumps look like too much fuss for not that much improvement in performance over vinylester.

The two ester types are used with a small ammount of catalyst (MEKP) to make them harden within hours. The polyester is what you'd get in the Bondo cans at Wal-Mart.

www.shopmaninc.com has some of the best prices I've found in resins so far. They also carry anything else you'd need.

If you're just making a box with the panels, I'd get some 3/8" aluminum L brakets (in 3 foot lengths at Lowe's/Depot) and build the frame from that using JBWeld or rivets. Then you can epoxy/glue/rtv the sheets to that frame.
You can also paint it black before gluing on the panels so they aren't so..uhhh... "sore-thumbish".

It's very similar to filberglass in the techniques used, except there's actually 2 ways you can do it.

The first, is the most professional way to do it, and it's with a vaccum mold. High pressure suction works the resin onto the material and will create the strongest bond possible.

The other, is just like fiberglass, build a frame out of a material, usually balsawood or MDF, make a mock layer of a stretchable fabric, and sandwich the fabric in carbon fiber.

Mashie actually has made 2 cases I believe completely out of CF, and he is the basis of my next mod. He has a basic write-up on how he does it on his site, Mashie.org


Hope that helps ya, and be carefull working with carbon fiber!